Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter was released in October, 28 2011. After the first few minutes playing the game players started reporting, incredulous with what they were experiencing (or not experiencing), that the game was very unstable and incomplete. The (un)official word by release day was that (by mistake) the game had been released in beta state. That “bogus version” would eventually be replaced by the final product. However that build wasn’t final either (very far from it actually).

Two weeks after release I wrote a (somewhat lengthy) SotS2′ first impressions. I saw no point in publishing a review at that time because it was more than clear to everybody by then that the game was released unfinished. In public announcements, both the publisher and the developer have apologized for the game’s state at release time and committed to complete it.

Three months after release (more than the producers had announced they needed to put the game in a playable state), I’m writing Sword of the Stars II’s review. I read all the game’s latest documentation available (manual and beginners’ guide) and I played 3 games, for around 250 turns total. One game I played with the Sol Force faction, another with the Morrigi Confederation and finally one with the Liir-Zuul Alliance (the one I liked playing the most, by the way).

Exploring the Sword of the Stars 2′s Universe

I admit that I was never a big fan of the original SotS’ star map and its 3D navigation. Although it looks nice on the surface I find it quite hard to find a view that I like, so, I’m re-adjusting it constantly. Anyway, eventually you will get used to the starmap’s navigation mechanics. You can zoom in and out and rotate in every direction, but I miss the ability to intuitively grasp distances between star systems. And the UI doesn’t help you with this either since it doesn’t give you quick distance information, like parsecs, turns, whatever unit really, so that you know how far a star actually is.

On the other hand, SotS2 offers a very interesting way to move your ships around the stars. To send your ships to other star systems you must first create a fleet. To do that you must pick an admiral from the admiral pool (each one with its positive and negative traits). Then you need to select one or more ships to include in your fleet. Your fleet must always include at least one command ship, a special type of ship that is required to coordinate the other ships. After that you can start conducting missions.

Actually, almost everything you do in SotS2 is achieved through the missions concept. You assign a mission, the designated fleet moves to some place, does what it needs to do and then returns to base. Take into account that the mission ETA (the time it takes for the fleet to do what you order it to do) includes the time for the fleet to arrive at its destination, perform the required mission (survey, colonization, construction, patrol, strike, invade, etc) and then head back to base.

To explore star systems you assign a survey mission. Any type of fleet, with any type of ship is allowed to do this type of mission. To build structures you assign a construction mission. In this case you need to have at least one constructor-type ship to be able to conduct such a mission. Then you can issue colonization orders. For that you need to have at least one colonization transport in your fleet. These missions (survey, construction, colonization) are your basic non-military type of missions but then you have a series of military-act missions you can do, which include patrolling, striking or invading star systems. You can also perform an interdiction mission which will not directly attack a system but will attack anyone coming in or out of it.

I love SotS2′s mission mechanic. I like it because in my opinion it removes the barren feeling normally associated with the traditional way to create and move ships around in other games of this type. Moreover, and since you can’t have hosts of fleets, your ships and your decisions really do matter, and that, in my opinion, is a big plus for SotS2.

Expanding your empire across the galaxy

Another Sword of the Stars 2′s great feature is the stations concept. Stations are modular structures that you can evolve over time by purchasing additional modules that increase their efficiency. Some modules will lift empire limits, others will unlock new possibilities. Stations evolve through four stages, with the culminating stage being a very special, expensive and unique structure for each type. There are four basic types of stations: Civilian, Diplomatic, Naval and Science stations. Besides these four basic types of stations there are two additional specific ones, one for the Hivers faction (the Gate stations) and another for the Suul’ka Horde (Tribute stations). Then there is a lesser station type (to some degree) used for mining purposes.

You can use stations to expand your empire’s military and research levels but also to boost trade and diplomatic relations with other empires. Although it’s fun to build and develop your stations there’s still also some mystery about them since you don’t know, exactly, how much of an impact a particular station is having on your research, for instance. Research modules should increase the research bonus ok, but then you can’t see an accumulated bonus modifier. There’s some polishing work to do here, as I found the stations concept, more the information about them, a bit obscure.

Developing your empire… but… with so many doubts?…

The economical part of the game is probably the most confusing one of all the game’s weakest elements. I mean, what exactly is a planet’s “Economical rating” anyway (moreover it’s always the same value for all colonies)?! And the manual doesn’t help you either. What about the biosphere concept? How exactly does it work (again the manual fails you and there are no tool tips available to guide you). This is the sort of thing that makes you frustrated and wanting to stop playing the game because if we have so many doubts about the game how are we supposed to understand the full scope of our decisions?

For example, in the empire manager screen (above), where you make all your economical strategic decisions, there’s a slider called “Stimulus”. No tool tips are provided on how it works and again the manual (and the in-game encyclopedia) fail to help you again. So, it was only after I consulted the game’s forums that I could understand what the intention behind the stimulus slider was (I went to the game forums constantly to try to understand stuff I could not find anywhere else btw).

So, it seems that there’s a private (or civil sector) of some sort in SotS2′s mechanics. The idea is that if you help, the best word is stimulate really (like government spending), areas like mining, colonization and trade then the civil sector will act autonomously from you and will create their own trade ships, trade routes and mining bases, and even help the empire on the colonization efforts free of charge (no maintenance costs associated) at the cost of lack of control over those enterprises that is.

This civil sector seems to be a great feature but as so little information about the stimulus slider is available on how (or when) this can be used to help your economy you can’t help not to feel quickly frustrated again. For instance, there are a series of techs that you need to discover first before the stimulus slider can actually work. But nothing is said anywhere about what needs to be done, and the sliders are just there open for you to play with them. However you don’t have a clue on what you’re doing (or obtaining). There’s no feedback from the game (no feedback at all) so you actually don’t know if your investment in stimulus is producing any effect. This is a very severe game shortcoming.

SotS2′ tech tree is probably one of its stronger points however. There are many tech trees (or branches) to invest in, with plenty of techs to research. In some cases, before researching a new tech you must first undertake a feasibility study. This tech pre-assessment will tell you how likely a tech is to breakthrough. This is very interesting because this uncertainty on how many turns a tech will actually take to research (if it will breakthrough at all) adds another layer of uncertainty on top of the random tech tree. In summary, there’s enough content and depth in the tech trees to keep you entertained by researching and experimenting new techs.

The worst, or better said, most incomplete aspect of SotS2 is the diplomacy system. And SotS2 would not be a 4X game without it would it? Well, in fact there’s barely any information on the manual or in-game about how diplomacy actually works, yet and in a way this is quite consistent with what the game currently offers in this respect (or at least is perceived to offer), which is, very little.

The diplomacy functional skeleton is already there, you can see what races you have already contact with. You can negotiate treaties and request things from them however there is so little feedback on your diplomatic actions, and the bugs are so many that it’s utmost evident that the diplomacy system still needs to be finished before we can even say anything further about it. In summary, the game’s diplomacy system is not yet finished and is barely functional at this stage.

Spaceship design and construction

And now we reach one of my favorite parts of the game (that actually feels very complete): the ship design and invoicing system. If you want to prototype your own cruiser, dreadnought or leviathan class ship (or any other ship for that matter) SotS2 offers you a straightforward and satisfying way to do that. Like in the original SotS, ships are modular. There are three modules that need to be customized separately. There is an engine section, a ship-type class section and another module for other vessel special characteristics.

At first not all that you’re required to do (or know) is evident, which is a SotS2 general problem. But after you experience around with the various options provided to you, you start to get the hang of it. There are many weapons, weapon types and mounts to choose from. You can even compare one weapon against another in a nice graph instead of having to memorize damage numbers, or having to cycle through the various weapon one by one. There are also extra modules, mostly that you unlock through research that you can include also. As already said ships are separated in three modules that increase the configurations variety, so, you can also play with that to further customize your ships. With respect to ship design SotS2 also includes a very nice ship testing feature. After choosing all your ships’ parameters you have the chance to see it in action before entering in real combat. The game puts you in a simulation controlled environment with some targets for you to test your armament.

The invoice system, i.e. the way you instruct your ships to be built, is also nicely done and gives you (in this case) all the information and features you need to build your ships. Before building ships of your newest designs you must invoice a single prototype. Only when your prototype gets built you can start producing that design in mass. The only negative aspect worth mentioning in the invoicing system is that I didn’t find a way to re-order invoices in the invoices queue after they are submitted. Although this may sound realistic I think the game should allow you to re-order your build queue anyway.

Space combat

Since SotS was always much more about space combat than strategy, we now reach one of the game’s critical areas: space combat. First of all SotS2′s space combat is very demanding in terms of performance, but if you actually have a good, or very recent 3D accelerator video card, you should be fine. But I leave the warning for people with moderate-to-good video cards from 3 years ago: you may struggle a bit to get a decent and smooth space combat rolling, if you do manage to tweak your card well enough in the end I mean.

Unlike the rest of the game that plays in turns combat unfolds in real-time, in a limited time span between 5 to 12 minute sessions(this limit is set by you at game setup). Overall graphics are very good. The planet models for instance are probably the best looking I’ve seen to date. The space stations and all spaceships are also very nice looking (some of them absolutely gorgeous), so, the graphical aspect of space combat is overall very good.

Now, in terms of gameplay, I found combat to be quite straightforward. You point, click, order attack with the left mouse button, select several ships and order movement with your right mouse button. Point, click, shoot, move, shoot again or standoff and retreat, all the basic combat options that this sort of game usually offers. I quite enjoyed the combat overall. The voices are nice, a bit repetitive but actually quite good, especially the Liir ones. I had only a few annoyances to report, but those are not strictly related with the combat itself but more with the preceding and the succeeding UI panel, that I found to be a bit rough and even wrong, as it contained some mistakes. For instance the battle report screen (at the end of battle) shows you a wrong number of destroyed ships.

Some further scattered thoughts

The game offers multiplayer options (LAN and Internet) but during the time I played for this review I only saw one open game there, which was protected, so I can’t tell you anything further than this regarding multiplayer.

The ETA system for turns is still unfinished and frankly quite disappointing. Sometimes fleets take less time to arrive at their destination. Sometimes a fleet uses less time to build a station, for example. Other times these issues are far more evident. Sometimes you get negative ETAs (yes, “-2″ turns for example) or you get “5937593″ turns, or overlapped text. I found this ETA instability very disturbing.

Sometimes you can’t colonize a world and you don’t know why. Other times you can’t relocate a fleet somewhere and you also don’t have enough information either in-game or in the manual to understand why. Could it be that you can’t have many fleets stationed in one system? But we don’t actually know that there is a maximum number, so there’s that lack of information and feedback problem again.

Sounds are basic, and music is minimal (although there is one for each faction), but they are enough to set the tone well. Voices are ok in general, mediocre at places (with annoying accents or simply unremarkable) but excellent in others (like when playing with the Liir for example).

Game screen switching, i.e. entering and leaving screens can lag severely. In large maps you can get up to 8-10 seconds to return back to the starmap (from the research screen for example). In smaller maps this is largely mitigated, and you end up getting “only” 1-3 seconds lag.

The fleet manager is cool, you can assign formations to your fleets (even in different layers: up, middle, down) although I’m not sure if this is actually working in combat as it should since in my battles my ships were all set in a straight line.

You can actually see stations under construction.

I didn’t like the fact that you can’t play with less than 3 systems at game start (for any map size).

The colonization system is interesting. After you colonize a new world you may decide to keep giving support to that recently established colony, especially if it was built in a less favorable environment. When you’re giving support to those colonies you accelerate their development, the downside however is that your colonization fleet is unavailable to establish new colonies elsewhere.

Very interesting shield technologies. The are several types of shields offered for research (against beam or projectile weapons for example) and you actually need to mount them in ships using special modules in order to use them.

The different factions, lore and background information is very good.

Bottom line

It’s clear to me that the game’s problem is not one of design but one of implementation. Both the art and the overall game’s design looks, and feels great. But you can’t help not to end up feeling frustrated sooner or later because of all the lack of information, crashes (for some people), bugs, lack of feedback or just incomplete or missing features.

After playing the latest version of Sword of the Stars 2 (the version the game was at, at the time that this review got published) I have strengthen my believe that this game has really great potential, and I mean BIG. Many issues have been addressed since release and the most important one being stability. The game is actually very stable now. At least for me it is. At release, and a couple of weeks after, I couldn’t even play for more than 4 straight turns (actually trying to do something) without crashing the game, and now, 3 months after that, I didn’t have a single crash after playing for this review.

At the time I wrote my Sword of the Stars 2′ first impressions I don’t think the game was playable at all, judging from my experience “playing” and by what everyone else in the game forums was saying. Now, judging from the type of activity I witnessed in the game forums (a lot more: “What’s that?, “How do I do this?” and less “I get a CTD here.”) the game is finally quite playable now. It’s not yet finished and lacks a lot of polishing work though. There are still bugs also to iron out. Examples of these are: wrong or negative ETAs, overlapped text at places, sliders that should not be active at game start, extreme lack of information and unpolished and buggy UI.

Now, about the golden questions you may be asking at this time: “Is the game already playable?”, “Is it ready?”, “Do you recommend the game?”. I will reply with this.

For the ones of you with a tight budgets that need to select carefully where to spend your money to maximize your game experience I can’t recommend this game for you at this moment. It’s too incomplete to be satisfying enough for you, and to be able to offer a solid game experience. At least for the $40-$50 price.

For you 4X veterans out there, that are still undecided whether to jump into SotS2 or not, I would say it’s already worth it for you to go ahead and buy SotS2. I think you can squeeze as much of the current game’s state to be worth the $40 or $50 bucks it costs. However don’t come back to me saying you had an unsatisfying experience because that’s probably what you’ll get. There’s the risk of not getting more than what you get now, yes, but there’s also a good chance you will.

If you’re new to this genre (space strategy) I don’t think it’s a good idea to enter in the SotS2 universe just now. There are other titles available that are definitely far better products, that will be more worthy of your money, and that will give you a better impression about the genre than Sword of the Stars 2: Lords of Winter will.

Guess I’ll need to re-review this one in a 3 to 6 months period, which is becoming a strange need these days.

Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter Buy it at GamersGate. Also available on Steam and Impulse.	Space Sector score: 4.0 (about the score system)

I’ve witnessed some bad releases in my time. This one has been no doubt one of the most disappointing. It’s sad how this is becoming a pattern these days and how the players are being turned into beta testers more and more. Add on top of that the fact that people had extremely high expectations for SotS2 (since the original SotS is a game loved by so many) and you get one of the most dramatic releases of the last years.

It’s fairly known by now that Paradox Interactive and Kerberos Productions have announced that there were (major) problems with the game’s release, so, I am sure many of you are not being caught by surprise. On the release’s very next day the publisher’s CEO Fredrik Wester made a statement on Paradox’s forum apologizing for the current state of the game. One day after that, it was Martin Cirulis time to apologize on the developers forum. In that post Kerberos’ CEO asked for patience and promised that things will be fixed as soon as possible.

Having heard so many horrible things about the release I decided to get my hands into SotS2 as fast as I could. So, in the meantime of my work on the review here are my first impressions.

So, how bad is it?

It’s bad, really bad. Consider that I based these impressions on the latest available patch at the time of this writing (which would be the one from last Friday’s 11th November patch (several patches have already been issued since release day).

3D Map is a bit cumbersome to navigate

Let me start by saying that the worst part of this all is stability. It’s really hard to play the current release because it’s almost impossible to play 20 or more straight turns (actually trying to do something) without getting into a random crash to desktop (sometimes on the fleet manager, others on the “diplomacy” menu and on other places). Other times the game will just freeze, when you try to access the game menu for example. I know this is not happening just here because I’ve been checking forums where people are discussing the game, and they are saying the same there too.

But it’s not just stability. The game feels incomplete, it’s unpolished in many aspects and you can tell that there are features that are dummy or still work in progress. I think a couple of pictures will show you better what I mean.

But it’s not only the incompleteness. Some things are just plain missing. Trade for example is not yet functional from what I could tell. You adjust your sliders to divert production to trade but nothing happens, you don’t get more income as you’re supposed to. (Edit 16/11: So it seems that trade should be already functional by now – from what I could learn in the Kerberos’ forum – however apparently the player is required to build the right kind of station, research the right tech, build freighters, and then trade routes will eventually be established, but I can’t confirm this yet. And surely this is not documented anywhere, and nothing in the game leads you to think you need all this) Another example is diplomacy. At first I could not see any diplomacy options, that’s ok, I had not encountered any opponent yet. Eventually I found an opponent and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Most Diplomacy options are just a placeholder, a dummy version barely 20% functional perhaps. See below.

Diplomacy options are currently a placeholder

It looks better than it actually is. The buttons “System Data”, “Slaves”, “World”, etc, are all placeholders, when you click nothing happens. At first you think you’re doing something wrong but after a while it becomes evident that you’re not. This is what you get if you request or demand something (I don’t know what the difference between the two options is since both lead to the same screen above). If you click treaty you can’t do anything (maybe you can’t yet? At this point you can’t help to start thinking otherwise).

Then there’s the random crashing and freezing (that I already talked about) and the annoying lag-time between menus that can go from a normal 1 to 2 sec time to more than 5, 10 or more seconds in some cases (again I know that this is not happening just here).

Then there’s more unpolished stuff and more annoyances proper of an Alpha/Beta release. Things like:

• No in-game tutorial.
• Options and cinematic in the game menu greyed out (unavailable).
• Not being able to select multiple fleets to strike a system (having to go and assign one by one).
• Not being able to distinguish explored from unexplored systems in a user-friendly way.
• Finding a gaseous planet (and a barren planet) with an Earth-type model rendering when you zoom-in.
• Many Terran planets have Very similar models (if not the same).
• Having to switch continuously between tech trees to pick the one I want (very tedious process).
• Info panel states 6 turns for a fleet to reach a destination but actually it takes 3 or less (at least with the Morrigi engines - the ones I played more). This is a very serious problem.
• There is “salvage research” and “special project” sliders on the empire manager screen that I don’t have a clue what they are for (even after reading both the manual and the beginner’s guide entirely – the Manual is very nice BTW). And what about the locked “Immigration Rate” slider? More tool-tips would help.
• There’s not an empire wide fleet overview screen, so we lose track of fleets very easily.
• Sotspedia (or Encycolopedia – not a typo, it’s how it’s written in the game) doesn’t help much and it’s incomplete.
• Station build order costs can’t be seen upfront, and while you can cancel the order after seeing how much it costs to upgrade the station it’s clear that that’s not the way it should be implemented.
• We don’t get a sense of distance between stars in the 3D map. To know that you need to simulate sending a fleet there… (couldn’t find another way)
• UI rendering is very poor in places (some ugliness when over-zooming). Clearly something that’s probably easy to fine-tune with proper testing.
• Overall UI clunkiness (from not very responsive to some serious lag at times)
• Can only rename planets right after colonization but can’t rename them ever since and systems can’t be renamed either (if they can please let me know)
• No random galaxy generation. Currently only a collection of fixed sand-box maps are available (scenarios are greyed out at game setup). The Manual states that systems details, stars and planets change from game to game but systems disposition (galaxy appearance) is fixed. This must be changed.

There’s more but I’ll save that for the review.

Anything good?

Plenty of it, great stuff, but unfortunately you can’t experience it for long because of all the bad stuff already mentioned, especially the stability issues.

There’s the beautiful ship models (some are just ok but others are gorgeous). The color palette may not be the best in places but the ships detail is generally awesome. You can even see inside the bridge/cockpit of some starships, I’m not talking about a painted model feel I mean you can actually feel you’re peaking inside the ship’s bridge. Awesome stuff (see below).

Want to peak inside a Morrigi cruiser?

There’s plenty of depth on the new stations concept. You can build many kinds of stations and you can upgrade them with new modules. This needs to be done carefully since they are very expensive yet very powerful. I really like this new stations feature. There’s Naval, Civilian, Diplomatic, Science, Gate and Tribute stations. Each of them level up several times till they become Science Centers, Star Cities, Star Bases, among other important base establishments that seem to have a strong impact in the game.

Gorgeously detailed stations

The lore is very interesting. The races background-story is detailed, rich and immersive. The races description is probably the best part of the manual by the way, and surely one of the best parts of the game also.

Other good and great aspects:

• Overall graphical rendering detail is very beautiful (planets, ships, stations).
• The missions concept is refreshing (survey missions, colonization missions, strike, invade, etc).
• Leaders: I could only see Admirals for now. For every fleet you need one of those. Each leader provides its own set of positive and less positive traits. Good one.
• Research randomization is kept from the original SotS and now there is the “Feasibility Study”, required before researching techs. Good addition in my opinion.
• There are small nice touches here and there. The tech icon rotates faster with more research spending and when there are ships under construction the build icon flashes to indicate you’re building something.
• Combat is overall nice although I experienced some clunkiness here and there. At some point I lost sight of my ships and it was hard to find them back … then the battle ended. Nevertheless space combat does feel epic, perhaps one of the best to date in 4X space games. We’ll see.
• There are independent races in the game that will not expand as much as the other major races. Finding them is supposed to be rare and you need to survey systems intensely in order to spot them (at least it’s what the manual states). Sounds good.
• There’s also a province concept where you can combine systems into provinces for economical bonuses and possibly other benefits I couldn’t grasp yet. Sounds great.
• The Survey missions, although a bit rough on the edges still, deserves an applause. eXploration has always been a weak link in 4X games, SotS2 does a great step in the right direction.
• Empire manager screen is rich in options and allows a good level of detail and control over the economical part of the game.

There’s more but that will also be in the review.

Bottom Line

In summary there’s plenty of good and even great stuff on SotS2 but there’s also plenty of horrible stuff as well. Some of the issues can (and will mostly probably) be resolved with patches to come (which the devs stated they are strongly committed on undertaking). When the stability issues are resolved, the trade made functional (Edit 16/11: or better explained) and the diplomacy complete I think the game will be fairly playable and probably already very enjoyable. At this moment however I think it’s not possible to enjoy playing, at least in my neck of the woods.

The release has been a disaster, that’s a fact, however both the devs and the publisher have made a sufficiently in-time mea-culpa, apologized and committed right away to support the game evolution through the coming months.  Moreover in order to help mitigate all this Paradox and Kerberos have offered a copy of the original Sword of the Stars Complete Collection to all the people who have bought SotS2 (or just the ones that have pre-ordered it, I’m not sure on this one).

For the ones thinking about buying the game at present state consider yourselves warned. For the brave and generous souls that are going to buy the game at this moment I think you have a good chance of not having your money badly spent since you’ll be supporting the devs through the patching process, now that all has been said. For the ones of you that have pre-ordered the game I guess there’s no big drama here either since you can choose to keep your faith in the game and on the devs or just decide to ask for a refund. I can’t see what’s the big fuss about this, at the very most people had their money tied-up alright but not lost.

All things considered I think SotS2 has all the ingredients to become a great game, perhaps even one of the best 4X space games of all time, but at the moment it needs many hours of polishing, tweaking and improvement still in order to aspire to reach that far.

I think I carried myself a bit with this first impressions article, it came out quite longer than I first anticipated, for an article of this nature, but I think it can be helpful for people to have an in-depth overview of the game’s current state. Thanks for reading and good luck to the devs on the major task ahead!

I thought it was time we had another contest at Space Sector. So, I’m proud to announce that Space Sector has teamed up with Paradox Interactive and we’ll host a giveaway contest at Space Sector. Paradox will offer 10 copies of Sword of the Stars 2: Lords of Winter, this 28th of October. But that’s not all. Paradox was generous and in addition to the 10 SotS2 copies it will also offer 20 copies of Sword of the Stars Complete Collection (the entire SotS original series).

This means that the lucky 10 will get Sword of the Stars II and Sword of the Stars Complete Collection. The next set of 10 lucky ones will receive a copy of Sword of the Stars Complete Collection, which is a great way to enter in the SotS Universe also. So, in total there will be a total of 20 prize winners in this contest.

How to enter in the contest

1. Follow on twitter: @spacesector, @swordofthestars, @PDXinteractive - OR – like Space Sector, Sword of the Stars and Paradox on facebook
2. Tweet for Sword of the Stars. Example: “I will eXplore, eXpand, eXploit & eXterminate the universe! @spacesector @swordofthestars @PDXinteractive to win a copy” – OR – share this blog post URL in facebook
3. For the social network non-users out there (that don’t want to join these networks) you can still enter the contest. You folks can forget about points 1 and 2, you just need to subscribe the Space Sector newsletter (in the sidebar to the right) and Paradox’s newsletter by registering in their forum. This is not a big deal to ask I guess, and you can unsubscribe both newsletters later at any time if you wish. Although I think you’d lose a great opportunity to stay in touch with Space Sector’s news ;)
4. Make a comment in this blog post below. Submit your name and email in the comment form (we’ll use that email to contact you if you’re one of the winners). Let us know also what you’ve done regarding point 1,  2 and 3. Don’t forget to include your twitter id or facebook id (for points 1 and 2) or the username you used to register the Paradox forum (for point 3).

I will give examples of how you guys should post your comments to become eligible:

@<your twitter name here> has followed @spacesector, @swordofthestars and @PDXinteractive and tweeted

Another example:

<your facebook name here> liked Space Sector, Sword of the Stars and Paradox and shared this post in facebook

One more:

Registered Space Sector newsletter and registered in Paradox’s forum with username [the username you used to register in paradox's forum here].

We’ll pick the winners on the 28th of October 2011 at 12:00 am EST. I’ll check those to see if they fulfilled all points, if they shared and what it was. Edit: I forgot to mention. Contest closes on 27th October 12:00am EST. After that point you can no longer enter the contest. I’ll signal that by changing the contest status to [CLOSED].

The contest winners will be generated randomly with the help of random.org

Games will be provided via Steam.

Games’ info:

• Sword of the Stars 2: Q&A with Chris Stewart
• Sword of the Stars 2: Opening Cinematic Sneak Peak
• Sword of the Stars 2: New Video Interview With Martin Cirulis at GDC
• Sword of the Stars Complete Collection – Review

Good luck!

Cheers

Adam Solo

Targeted for release on Q1 2011 SotS2 promises to take the series to a new level at the same time keeping some essential features and gameplay mechanics of the original title. I invite you to watch the video below where Martin Cirulis (Kerberos productions CEO) introduces many of the game aspects, its similarities with the original title and what new content to expect in SotS2.

Check out also some screenshots and also the latest news obtained during the E3 (Electronic Entertainment Event) held at Los Angeles on 15-17 June 2010.

SotS2: Interview with Martin Cirulis (Kerberos Productions CEO)

SotS2 screenshots (click to enlarge)

Some recent media coverage about the game at E3

Big Download got a chance to ask some questions to Kerberos Productions’ CEO and creative director Martin E. Cirulis: “E3 2010: We learn more about Sword of the Stars 2″

Gamespot visited the Paradox Interactive booth at E3 2010 and got the following: “Sword of the Stars II Impressions”

Strategy Informer’s brings you straight to the show floor at E3, where they made an interview with Paradox Interactive about Sword of the Stars 2: “Strategy Informer’s Sword of the Stars 2 Interview“

Don’t forget to check out the official SotS2 Paradox Interactive site for news and developments about this promising 4x Sci-Fi game.

Without revealing much about the sequel they said that the game will bring back the original six races and introduce a new race: the Suul’ka which is an ancient race in the SotS universe that will be central to the title main story plot.

The developer and the publisher were already teamed up on the first SotS game, but not since the beginning where the former publisher was Lightouse Interactice.

They explain that SotS 2 is still in the early conception phase and promise that it will not be only an evolution of the original SotS gameplay and story with better graphics and that instead players should look forward “to a whole new game that is based on the central SotS experience, but willing and able to grow beyond it to offer even more in terms of strategy, tactics and gameplay.” Martin Cirulis, CEO Kerberos Productions.

Sword of the Stars 2 is in early production and is scheduled to be released in Q1 2011.

To find out more about Sword of the Stars II, check the Paradox Interactive Sword of the Stars II official site.

For information and discussion about the original Sword of the Stars title check the Kerberos Productions SotS forums. You can get the original SotS and two of it’s followup expansions from Stardock/Impulse.