Space Empires V | 
| From: Navarre
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $11.20
You Save: $8.79 (44%)
New (9) Used (1) from $10.50
Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 3314
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows Xp, Windows 98
Genre: Role Playing Games
ESRB: Everyone
Media: CD-ROM
Batteries Included: No
Age: 5 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows 2000
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 0 x 0.1 x 0.1
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: 627006902109
Model: 6-27006-90210-9
UPC: 627006902109
EAN: 0627006902109
ASIN: B000G1G9ZS
Release Date: October 17, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Detailed Empire management - Research, Intelligence, Politics, Construction Queues, Vehicle Design, and more | | • | Explore a large galaxy with 100 solar systems - 15 planets each | | • | Randomly generated map for every game (or load an existing map) | | • | Discover black holes, nebulae, binary stars, trinary stars, asteroid belts, gas giants, cosmic storms, and more | | • | Huge Technology Tree - Over 6000 tech levels, 500+ components and facilities |
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Product Description
In Space Empires V, an entire galaxy is yours to manage! You control every aspect of amassive empire -- and it's up to you to keep it running. Create the politics systems required to keep whole worlds running, design technology, encourage commerce and create a space empire unlike anything the univrse has ever seen before! Detailed Race Creation - Unique ship models, race picture, racial traits, technology, history, and more Completely customizable game graphics - Create your own planets, stars, vehicles, etc.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 This game has potential. November 8, 2006
Sean Murphy (Gig Harbor, WA USA)
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
I would agree that SEV has bugs, I've ran into a few myself. Even game crashing bugs... However, the potential for this game is so great that I can overlook the bugs (that will get fixed in patches, I am confident).
Others have given this game a bad review, because they are use to how normal games are released and played, this game should fall into a subcatigory of games called MODable games. Someone a while ago was dissapointed that the tech tree took too long to research, well just change it. It's not that hard, infact the makers of SEV made it easy to do. The data files are all text files and you can edit them easily.
Even better, with previous releases of Space Empires MODers released free ware programs that sped up the process. The potential of this game is something that can keep you entertained for years, not hours. What are most games rated at, you can finish it in 30 hours... With the MOD universe out there, SEV will keep you entertaind for a long time.
A great game - after the patch December 25, 2006
Jeremy A. Bible (Lebanon, Oregon)
20 out of 20 found this review helpful
Short History
I've been playing 4x games almost from the beginning. The first fun 4x game that I played was master of orion. Being able to play different races with different abilities and customizing up to 6 ships at the same time! Man, it was great ... for it's time.
Then came Master of Orion II which is a good game in its own right. I've spent many days playing the second game of the series and have to say that for quite a while it was my favorite game of the genre. That was until I happened upon space empire IV. I'd heard about the space empires series, but the reviews were generally low, so I stayed away from them. But, since Master of Orion III was a total loss and the Galactic Civilization series seemed to lack the depth that I like in a game, I thought I'd give it a try.
Space Empires IV
So, about a month ago, I purchased for less than $20 Space Empires IV. It's a solid game with a lot of committed modders out there that really made a good game. I wouldn't say great, but good. The tech tree is huge, the AI is O.K., and ship design system is good as well. It was the most fun that I had had with a 4x game since the original Master of Orion first came out.
Space Empires V
Then, space empires V came out. Quite a few low reviews made me wait for a while to purchase the game. There were a lot of bugs in the initial release and I can see why the reviews that were done were low because of that. But, I got the game this week and all I can say is WOW! What a great game!
The 3D graphics are the really good! The real time space battles instead of being turn based really are well done. The ships are different for each race and look pretty good. Not perfect, but good. Each weapon has it's own effect in battle and you can set each ship to do a different function. One ship can act as a picket defender, another could Kamikazi, another stay at optimal firing range. There are quite a few strategy options that can be set for each fleet. The layout is nice too.
The technology is incredible! You can get cloaking, the obligatory laser beams, anti-matter torpedoes, missiles, anti-missile guns, fighters, bombers, and even organic weapons with armor that heals itself, etc. Just about anything you can think about to put into a strategic space sim is here.
The sounds are good. Ships have neat sounds when the blow up, weapons sound good. Warp points have a good sound, but it somehow overloads my speakers and sounds a little bit like feedback at one point of the sound, but the actual sound is very appropriate for ships going through a warp.
The ship battles are great fun! And there are a lot more of them than I've experienced in other space sims. It really has a feel like you're fighting for galactic dominance. You can't really sit back and relax, it's a fight in this game. Albeit a fun one.
So far the AI seems to be good. Again, not great, but very good. I planted 2 colonies in a system that was a little ways away. The AI came in and took them out without declaring war on me. They even warned me in advance to leave the system as they were claiming it. Then ... they did! It was pretty cool.
Be warned, as with most good strategy games, there is a learning curve that at first may feel like a cliff. But hang in there, the actual gameplay is worth it once you understand what's going on. My personal opinion is that to maximize this great game that someone would be well served to buy space empires IV first. Play it a month, then go to space empires V. But, if you're like me, you won't. Just means that the learning curve will be a bit steeper. OH, and btw, I've heard that steam has an offer out there where you can buy Space Empires V and you get Space Empires IV for free included.
My Review
Graphics - Good 7
Sounds - Average 5
Gameplay - 9
Overall Fun - 10
Pros -
Absolutely HUGE and fun tech tree
(I'd estimate the numbers of technologies at least 500 distinct techs)
Good AI ... the best I've seen for this style of game
Good battle scenes
(Numbers of ships battling each other definitely reaching an epic scale)
Sounds are average for a game of this type
Ability to create/design your ship using researched technologies
- This part is great fun and probably the best part of the game
Good real time battle scenes
Cons -
Sound could have been a little bit better
Lots of bugs before patching up to 1.20
(that's the latest patch version at the time of this review)
LONG learning curve. Almost assumes that you've played Space Empires IV.
Final Conclusion
Overall a great game. I think this is the best PC game that I've purchased since the Total War Series. Two thumbs up ... WAY UP!
 Slightly buggy but Great fun! October 18, 2006
Jeff Travis (Apex, NC United States)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
This game would have been a hands down 5 Stars! Heck maybe even 6 stars, if it were not for the bugs. As of this writing, I have version 1.17 which is a lot more stable than the previous builds, but I have tracked down an annoying bug that crashes the game revolving around Alliances.
The good news is that I have talked with Tech Support and even sent them instructions along with the file on how to fix it. They have been very nice and receptive to fixing any bugs mentioned.
But I digress...
Space Empires V has brought back into gaming something I have missed since the early 90s. A true turn based strategy game. While playing the demo, I realized early on that this game has incredible depth. You can build the plans for star bases, ships, units and lot more. This includes building the plans for mines, satellites and ground units like tanks or the ships that haul them.
While I have played for a good 20 hours or so, I have yet to really touch the surface of this game as the depth is amazing.
You can negotiate treaties with other Empires that involve trade, mutual defense, minefield codes, intelligence, research, use of various technologies such as creation of black holes and a whole lot more. Alliances works similar to treaties.
The research tree is huge and it will take you quite a while before you can research everything on it. This covers the spectrum of weapons, to engines, to tractor beams and wormholes. Research includes planetary enhancements, ship enhancement, intelligence and nearly every sci-fi space technology you can imagine.
This review could easily be three or four pages long, so I'll just close with saying that this game is improving with each patch. With the depth of stuff you can do in the game it might be amazing that there are not more bugs! This game is a definite must try. Visit the Space Empires website and download the trial demo. If your a space strategy game fan, this games worth your money!
Great game. Best value in space strategy gaming. November 2, 2006
Iron Giant (Boston)
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
I've been playing the predecessor to this game for over 5 years. How many games can claim to have a loyal fan base 5 years after release?
SE5 not only improves on everything over SE4, but adds a lot more options too.
You can research and build a fleet of missle destroyers, or Battleships with Meson Blasters, or marine ships that captures enemy ships, or bombard planets, or build super carriers with bombers. Everything is custom designed by you.
You can make custom treaties with your neighbors. Make Peace, make war. Build an alliance against someone else, or just stand alone and conquer the galaxy. Every game is different.
If you research high enough, you can build a Ring World and populate it. You could destroy a star in your enemys system and wipe out all planets, or create a star and build a Sphere World around it.
There is also Intelligence and spying. Get his ships to come to your side, put his planets into rioting, steal his technology, or just spy on his empire.
There is a very active MOD community that created many, many mods for SE4 and has already started releasing Mods for SE5. In fact, just about everything in the game is Moddable, even by a novice. Most settings are in .txt files and can be set by anyone.
As of the current release, version 1.08, there are some bugs remaining. But this game is SO huge and expansive, you could never do everything in one game anyway. Plus, Malfador releases many patches every year, for many years after release so its only going to get better.
The graphics look much better than SE4, but are not pretty by todays standards. If you want eye candy, buy "Nexus, the Jupiter Incident". That is the best looking Space Sim ever, but once you've played Nexus through, there is nothing else to do. If you want to run a huge empire again and again, trying different techs and strategies, there is NO game that even comes close to the Space Empires series.
 Space Empires 5 Disappoints October 24, 2006
smallgrassyhill (VA, USA)
10 out of 18 found this review helpful
After years of waiting, and thousands hours playing Space Empires 4, I was delighted to see the sequel on the shelves of my neighborhood software store earlier than I had expected. In my opinion, Space Empires 4 was the only worthy successor to the legendary "Master of Orion."
However, Space Empires 5 can best be summed up as the mediocre successor to the thoroughly disappointing Master of Orion 2 (MOO2).
Game play was terrible unless you are completely focused on attack style playing. It's impossible to play a defensive game due to the ridiculously long technology tree. Basically, you can't research enough high powered technology to keep enemies at bay, without engaging in ENDLESS warfare.
Some technology elements take literally hours of boring turn after turn repetition before you reach the technology next plateau. Furthermore, the mouse over windows were completely lacking in detail for what each research component actually did, so a separate trip to the game encyclopedia was necessary on an all too frequent basis.
The jazzed up graphics are a treat to look at, but fall into the same trap that MOO2 fell into- too much visual detail going on, and reduced ability to manage screens due to complex graphics layout. Some of the MANY detail screens take too long to drill down to essential information, and I had wrist fatigue from moving the mouse cursor all over the screen every single turn in order to manage -poorly- my empire.
Game play was similar to SE4, but poor management of gameplay took much of the fun out of the game. However, some cool elements of game play and combat were introduced.
I'm giving SE5 a few more tries, but it looks to me like it's going back on the dusty shelf with MOO2.
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