A turn-based 4X space strategy collection
Sword of the Stars: Complete Collection brings together the original Sword of the Stars along with its three expansions: Born of Blood, A Murder of Crows and Argos Naval Yard. The setting begins in the year 2405, when human scientists develop faster-than-light travel between stars, only for Earth to be ravaged by an alien force. You take a race through research, ship design, fleet movement and battles across a galaxy. The base game offers four races — Human, Hiver, Tarkas and Liir — and the expansions add the Zuul in Born of Blood and the Morrigi in A Murder of Crows. Each race has its own mode of transport between star systems, which shapes a noticeably different style of play.
Playing together with your group
Up to 8 players can face the AI and each other over LAN or online, so a group can split into teams or fight free-for-all. The game is turn-based, meaning everyone issues orders and then the turn resolves, which gives a group time to talk through plans between moves. You can also pick from a variety of scenario campaigns to play alone or with friends, and Argos Naval Yard adds co-op scenario maps for single player and multi-player.
What to know before starting
Ship design is a core part of the game: you build from three size classes — Destroyer, Cruiser and Dreadnought — drawing on over 150 technologies on a dynamic tech tree and more than 40 weapons across six weapon classes. The expansions push this further with over 90 new ship sections and the Tunnel Drive for the Zuul, over a dozen new sections and the Grav Flock drive for the Morrigi, plus additional weapons, technologies and ship sections for the original races. Born of Blood also introduces features such as Slavery, Trade Routes and Diplomatic Communications, while A Murder of Crows adds the Xeno-Cultural and Drones tech tree, drone-carrying ships in all three size classes, construction ships, orbital stations, spy ships and police cutters. Expect a deep, systems-heavy strategy game where learning your race's transport method and ship options matters as much as the battles themselves.