Retro Gaming - Emperor of the Fading Suns

[tgb]

Recently I came across my old copy, complete with manual. Getting it to run in Win '95 compatibility mode was no problem. I never gave it a lot of time because back when it was first released it was so far out of the pale of the MOO mold I couldn't get my head around it. Also, back then I had an aversion to anything with hexes.

Anyway, I'm ready to tackle this bad boy for real, and am looking for links to patches (I remember something about fan-made patches that greatly improve the game) and strategy guides. Google has turned up something called Hyperion, which seems to be a mod, but I want to get into the vanilla game first.

[Doomboy]

I think the mods are the way to go. The game was pretty broken, even with the patch. I think the mods give the AI more stuff to play with so that they are a challenge.

Fading Suns was so very close to being a great game. The guys who made it were kinda similar to the guys who made Arcanum and Bloodlines. Some more time in the oven, and the games would have been done.

It still has tons of atmosphere though. I liked it even in its flawed state.

[Seppe]

You can play vanilla fine, but the mods balance things more. there were two mods for it. Hyperion was one of them. One of the things one mod did was to change the movement (and maybe name) of the basic units like artillery, anti-air, etc to zero, so you have reason to build the other higher tech units. They also turn off the ability of the church to proscribe tech, they have them proscribed already.

Like Doomboy said the game had a lot of potential. And really should be played as almost an RPG because the AI isnt going to provide much of a challenge.

[Finalgenesis]

In the vanilla, the tech 1 artillery can take out top tier units easily enmass due to the mechanics of the damage type and misbalance on agility / armor. Hyperion patch tried to address that issue and mostly fixed it. I recommend skipping vanilla entirely as the balancing is simply horrible

I agree that the game was steps away from being great. The atmosphere, lore, world settings (pope, symbiots, the council, positions like imperial eye ...etc) are amazingly creative. Now if only it was more polished and have a workable AI...

[Max Peck]

Emperor of the Fading Suns is now available on GOG.