Alliance of the Sacred Suns

[dbemont]

Upcoming grand strategy game set in the year 3050. You play as the leader of the dominant House uneasily ruling over a fractious group of other Houses spanning star systems. About the only thing you all have in common is fear of a third invasion by an unrelentingly hostile force.

https://allianceofthesacredsuns.com/

Emphasis seems to be on politics and building. Very deep, very steep learning curve.

Alpha version is available for about ten bucks, and there will soon be a Kickstarter. Anyone who buys in will eventually get a Steam key, but for now it's just a downloadable executable which I am finding fascinating but overwhelming.

Everything you do has political ramifications, and you cannot do much without getting some political support beyond your own House. From their website:

The first ‘5X’ grand strategy game ever!!!

Alliance of the Sacred Suns (AotSS) is a game unlike many that you have ever played. It is foremost a grand strategy game, with 4X elements, but also character and House management. We call it a 5X – the 5th ‘X’ being ‘eXist’. You are a character in AotSS, and if you die, the game ends… so tread lightly, your Majesty!
MAIN GAME FEATURES:

Top – level management – you have Action Points that are finite and vary from turn to turn. You can do almost anything, but you can’t do everything
You are the Emperor – you are a character in a game that has hundreds that you will interact with. If you die, or are deposed, the game is over
Multiple layers of strategy – from a traditional 4X-type (exploring and scanning new systems, colonizing planets, establishing outposts, building militaries and trade) upwards to developing your Great House and managing the other Houses that all have specialties that you can only take advantage of if you are on friendly terms with them, to discovering and reaching out to other breakaway human civilizations, to your ultimate goal of uniting the Celestial Empire against a final attack by humanities’ oldest enemy, the Xyl
Dynamic character relationship model – you can affect your relationships with Actions that you can take against characters, from giving a speech to challenging them to having them executed. Of course, they have relationships with others in the game too, so consider the knock-on effects of anything you do…
Great and Minor Houses – Houses limit what you can do as Emperor. Houses own territory, armies, etc. and if you piss them off, they may even try to usurp the Empire. Build alliances to allow characters with special talents and traditions to develop the Empire the way you want. For example, if you want a strong economy, you need good miners to ensure your factories run at full capacity, so you’ll want House Ilioaia (who has a strong mining tradition) on your side so you can appoint their members as viceroys of high-mineral planets… and so on.
Don’t micromanage, create a Project! Unlike traditional 4X games, you don’t make build queues, you create Projects to get things done, from colonizing a planet to throwing a celebration to upgrading a logistical region. You must assign an Adminstrator who gains power and influence from this post, and determines how smoothly your project will go! Assigning characters to Projects is a great way for them to earn power and influence… but take care that they do not gain too much, especially if they are of a House that hates you…

Website also has a link to some documentation, which gives a better picture of the gameplay.

[jztemple2]

Interesting, but way too early days for me. Still, I like that "5X" approach, sort of like CKII.

[Madmarcus]

After a brief (30 min) look I can say it runs on really pitiful hardware (N3450 with integrated graphics) and the UI is different enough from other 4x games that it will take some time to get used to it. It seems like it will be worth the time invested.

[dbemont]

Pretty good tutorial/gameplay video for the beginning of the game:
https://youtu.be/EiUVnZkfdEE

[Holman]

Kickstarter is up.

[Hrdina]

Kickstarter is up.

Dev interview from this week's Space Game Junkie podcast:

[Holman]

I hope they make it. They're under $9,000 (out of $30,000) with 16 days to go. Most Kickstarters have already had their biggest gains by this point.

Maybe RPS or someone will give them some press.

[Holman]

Interesting news. This was just posted at the Kickstarter:

UPDATE: We have some incredible news to share about Alliance, and what it means for the Kickstarter going forward.

Alliance of the Sacred Suns can be wishlisted on Steam and will release in 2021. Wishlisting Alliance signals Steam to show our game to more players, and is a huge help!

I am excited to announce that Alliance of the Sacred Suns will be published by Hooded Horse Inc., with guaranteed funding of $300,000, 10x our Kickstarter goal. Hooded Horse is also the publisher of Terra Invicta, another upcoming space strategy game, and we are over the moon about having the funding and resources to make Alliance reflect the vision we had for the project so long ago.

As we will need additional time to develop the project at our new expanded scale, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the Kickstarter campaign. With over 350 backers, many of you wanted to see Alliance succeed, and we don’t want to forget about those who were willing to help in our time of need.

So all of our backers, regardless of pledge amount, will receive free access to the Beta when it launches towards the end of 2021 as a thank you for your pledge and your support!

Signup for the Beta will be available at our website for 30 days.

We are very excited and grateful for this opportunity to bring the full vision of Alliance to the gaming community. We will make you proud of your support, and you will be pleased with the world we can bring to you.

Sincerely,

The KHS Team

[Max Peck]

There is now a demo available on Steam.

[Daehawk]

Looks too spreadhseety and info overloaded.

[Max Peck]

There is a gameplay dev stream on Steam this morning, as part of the Tacticon Steam event.