Obscure sci-fi strategy game Emperor of the Fading Suns gets it's first patch since 1997 and rebrands as Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced on GOG

[Paroni]

Better to fix games late than never I suppose?

Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced

Now available as Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced! Emperor of the Fading Suns has con

www.gog.com

Now available as Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced!

Emperor of the Fading Suns has continued to inspire players not just because of the game itself, but because of the many great mods fans made for the game. The focus of the 1.5 patch is to greatly enhance modding capabilities. Expect many more great mods for the game.

One of the most dramatic changes is one of the least seen. The game was initially built using the Watcom development environment, and one of the first things we had to do was migrate it to Visual Studio. Additionally, the 1.5 patch adds:

• Significantly enhanced and added significant modding capabilities. This allows modders to add dramatically more units, technologies, and worlds, and even change game facets like excommunication, sect abilities, ruins, and much more;
• Significant enhancements to the map editor;
• Enhanced role of religious sects, impacting your unit abilities and population loyalties;
• Enhanced player information on unit and city screens;
• Added House strength as a factor in diplomacy;
• Streamlined some interface elements; and
• Fixed a wide variety of bugs.

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Emperor of the Fading Suns is a very culty cult classic that was a very ambitious game for it's time, taking a lot of inspiration from Dune. It portrays a power struggle within a fading space empire, putting players in helm of nobility in interstellar dark ages. Lot of great ideas and exciting themes, but the game was left unfinished back in the day and despite enjoying niche popularity, was never completely salvaged even with mods.

Here comes a new patch to the commercial release though, with a massive changelog and I for one am quite excited to try it out. I never tried the game before due to it being inherently broken, but someone somewhere really cared enough to go out of their way to fix it.

 

[Bear Patrol]

Well, you've just sold me on it so thanks for pointing me towards this game Paroni!

Games like this that were simultaneously busted yet also ahead of their time in some areas are great "what if" scenarios for me. Great find!

 

[Uzzy]

Oh wow, that is really cool to see. Glad to see the game being worked on even today,

 

[Primus]

Geez, there's a game I haven't thought of in over 20 years. Amazing that Holistic came back to the game after all this time, and how many hands the Fading Suns tabletop RPG has gone through.

 

[Paroni]

I've been playing it a bit (tutorial to learn as you play isn't THAT bad but I'd still also recommend reading the manual), and while it definitely is a strategy game from 90s with all the usual oldschool clunkiness and plenty of clicking, I'm having a good time. Very engaging game. Also runs without any issues on Windows 10. Never played the old version, so can't say how QoL and AI improvements measure.

 

[Zemst]

Emperor of the fading suns is a banger name.

 

[IlGialloMondadori]

Emperor of the fading suns is a banger name.

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Totally. I think it's based on a PnP rpg.

 

[ElFly]

yeah not sure what's going on

GoG also sells a dlc for the original Master of Magic. People out there doing magic with old games

 

[Wrench]

Emperor of the fading suns is a banger name.

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Indeed!

Right up there with Sins of a Solar Empire.

 

[flyinj]

This game is really fun and unique.

Lots of weird systems bubbling under the surface, but playing it is really straightforward.

I really wish they did something about how you manage transporting troops with spacecraft. That is one clunky system. Although I imagine that would be a pretty big undertaking.

 

[Paroni]

This game is really fun and unique.

Lots of weird systems bubbling under the surface, but playing it is really straightforward.

I really wish they did something about how you manage transporting troops with spacecraft. That is one clunky system. Although I imagine that would be a pretty big undertaking.

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Yeah, it's kind of a chore, but luckily for me (and developers who therefore get a free pass from me for bad design far too much) I'm so used to clunky interfaces I'm almost oblivious to them.

 

[Paroni]

Just bumping to let the few people potentially interested know that there is an upcoming Steam release for Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced, and both Steam and Gog have a free demo. The demo is the full game, except you can only play it for 20 (in-game) years, can't save and can't play random maps.


View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2799350/Emperor_of_the_Fading_Suns_Enhanced/

Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced

Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced DEMO is available here Now available as Emperor

www.gog.com

 

[03-AALIYAH]

Totally missed that the TRPG had a videogame adaptation all that time. Need to check that demo.

 

[BBboy20]

i will keep this in mind

 

[NekoCat]

Whoa, I was just randomly thinking of this game the other day. Played the demo as a kid and was both overwhelmed and and fascinated. Maybe I should try to finally play it properly.

 

[NoctisLC]

Man I still remember playing this off a demo CD back in the day. I was too stupid to figure out how to play it then, wonder how i'd fare now.

 

[Spacejaws]

Sweet was just trawling my Steam library for a space strategy game to play on Steam Deck and sat there playing Endless Space for 3 hours last night. This looks right up my alley.

 

[padsports]

so there's still hope for Jedi:Survivor you say?

 

[SofNascimento]

Emperor of the fading suns is a banger name.

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This was my first thought reading the OP.

 

[Paroni]

so there's still hope for Jedi:Survivor you say?

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We'll see in 2040s.

 

[Paroni]

Sweet was just trawling my Steam library for a space strategy game to play on Steam Deck and sat there playing Endless Space for 3 hours last night. This looks right up my alley.

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This is still very much a 1997 game with UI sensibilities of the era, so I doubt it is going to be pleasure on the Steam Deck. But then again, they're going to make it more modable so who knows what some absolute lunatic of a modder could do?

 

[Spacejaws]

This is still very much a 1997 game with UI sensibilities of the era, so I doubt it is going to be pleasure on the Steam Deck. But then again, they're going to make it more modable so who knows what some absolute lunatic of a modder could do?

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As long as it has kbm controls I'll make it work lol. I enjoy playing old PC games on the Steam Deck a ton and barely anything I play has controller support. Half the meta game is spending hours cooking up working controller configs full of radial dials and macros to make the game easier to play. Then turn it off and start tinkering with a different game haha.