Games like Aurora

[boggo2300]

RTW focuses you on playing defensively when you are in a war and as the UK for example has holdings EVERYWHERE to defend you chew up so much of your fleet just giving a minimal defence to places you don't have enough to basically smite the weakling nations,  now this is accurate but maybe a little over focussed as the penalties for allowing enemy fleets activity around your colonies are a little harsh and restrict you a LITTLE too much (saying this, I've now kicked total ass as the UK with a finishing prestige of 61 and 5 monster Aircraft Carriers, 45,000 ton's each

[ZimRathbone]

RTW focuses you on playing defensively when you are in a war and as the UK for example has holdings EVERYWHERE to defend you chew up so much of your fleet just giving a minimal defence to places you don't have enough to basically smite the weakling nations,  now this is accurate but maybe a little over focussed as the penalties for allowing enemy fleets activity around your colonies are a little harsh and restrict you a LITTLE too much (saying this, I've now kicked total ass as the UK with a finishing prestige of 61 and 5 monster Aircraft Carriers, 45,000 ton's each

Impressed!
 
Haven't managed that well, but did get 58 prestige and 5 x 43,000t BBs with 17" guns and 1 CV at the same size (also a bunch of smaller CVs around the 32,000t mark that actually carried more a/c).  Was in the process of building HMS Superb (59,000t with 6x20").

[boggo2300]

How well you do does depend a LOT on the RNG, probably more than it should, if you for instance get a few early wars, that are short and sharp, when your opponent chickens out of a lot of fleet engagements, as soon as that war finishes you can build up quick, you get a few of those then more serious wars also start to go the same way,  I see it very much as your first war sets up the rest of the game

[Andrew]

I can usually manage a prestige of 100 + and a fleet of doom for the UK with historical resources but the USA is a definite threat in the end game with a fleet at least as large and often more modern. Playing the US makes the end game easy as no one else with AI control produces a fleet that can stand up to you even slightly.
I am having fun trying to dominate as one of the lesser powers

[boolybooly]

Regarding the OP, noone mentioned Stars! which was a great little game back in the day ('95).

I havent got it working on Win 10 yet and have kind of given up on it but it had a unique  feature where battles were auto played and you got to watch a recording.

Otherwise the UI and graphics were in the same ballpark as Aurora but a less complex quantitative resources system and some 2D graphical elelments like quantity barsfor that.

I am sure you could get it working if you had the right environment set up.

There is a wiki page for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars!

[skoormit]

Regarding the OP, noone mentioned Stars! which was a great little game back in the day ('95).

I havent got it working on Win 10 yet and have kind of given up on it but it had a unique  feature where battles were auto played and you got to watch a recording.

Otherwise the UI and graphics were in the same ballpark as Aurora but a less complex quantitative resources system and some 2D graphical elelments like quantity barsfor that.

I am sure you could get it working if you had the right environment set up.

There is a wiki page for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars!

I played the heck out of Stars! back in the day.
Most recently a PBEM, about five years ago.
Is DosBox still a thing? That's what I had to use to get it working back then.

And there's more than a wiki page. There's an entire wiki.

[Steve Walmsley]

Regarding the OP, noone mentioned Stars! which was a great little game back in the day ('95).

I havent got it working on Win 10 yet and have kind of given up on it but it had a unique  feature where battles were auto played and you got to watch a recording.

Otherwise the UI and graphics were in the same ballpark as Aurora but a less complex quantitative resources system and some 2D graphical elelments like quantity barsfor that.

I am sure you could get it working if you had the right environment set up.

There is a wiki page for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars!

I played a LOT of Stars! It was one of the influences on Aurora - I think that is where the idea for the various mineral deposits originated.

[AlStar]

On a similar note to Stars! (and just about as old), is VGA Planets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VGA_Planets) - I played back in the original 3.0 days, although it's apparently had several versions since.

Very similar to Aurora, each planet had mineral deposits of various amounts and densities that you needed to mine to create ships and fuel. Gameplay was turn-based, usually against multiple other human players PbM. Each race was loosely based on a faction from either Star Wars, Star Trek, or Battlestar Galactica (Borg Cubes against Empire Death Stars was always a fun matchup).

There were some neat shipbuilding decisions - the high-tech heavy phasors and torpedoes were good at blowing chunks out of an enemy's hull, but there were lower-tech options (disruptors and gamma bombs, IIRC) that inflicted far more crew damage to a ship, potentially allowing you to capture enemy shipping; or if you weren't expecting to need your beams for anything more than anti-fighter operations, even the lowest level 1 red lasers were more than enough for the task, and I believe recharged faster, to boot.

Haven't played the game in 20+ years, yet I still remember one of my first multiplayer games, when my Federation proudly proclaimed its sovereign territory to the enemy ships that popped up on long-range scans... not realizing that I'd actually included the other player's home worlds within the borders I was claiming.

[Bremen]

I played a lot of both Stars! and VGA Planets back in the day. As a kid back in the AOL era I was even big into Stars! multiplayer.

To toss my own suggestion in, fans of Aurora might take a look at Shadow Empire. It's sort of a cross between a Civilization style 4x game and a hex based wargame, and the combination worked a lot better than I expected - you do things like manage your economy by building mines, factories, various kinds of power plants, etc over your territory, but also have a large number of unit counters you spread around your land to try to manage things like defense in depth and protecting your supply lines (which are modeled and critically important, unlike most Civ style games).

The theme of the game is that you're playing a band of survivors on a colony world after the big star empire collapses. A major feature is the random planet generation, so sometimes you get basically an airless moon and sometimes it's a jungle world full of hostile alien monstrosities.

It's very detail heavy, leaning more towards complex wargame sims than a lighter game like Civ, which is why I suggest it as a similar game to Aurora (sadly it doesn't feature expansion into Space, and is purely planet based).

[nuclearslurpee]

I remember looking at Shadow Empire when it was first released, among other things I was very impressed that a proper manual was published which is a sadly rare thing these days (Paradox and others could learn a thing or two!). I can't recall whether I declined to pick it up due to lack of time or because I had read some poor reviews about bugs or game balance - any comment on the latter as potential issues?

[Ragnarsson]

I remember looking at Shadow Empire when it was first released, among other things I was very impressed that a proper manual was published which is a sadly rare thing these days (Paradox and others could learn a thing or two!). I can't recall whether I declined to pick it up due to lack of time or because I had read some poor reviews about bugs or game balance - any comment on the latter as potential issues?

I've played it a bit and quite enjoyed it. I'm not great at assessing balance, but on the bugs front I don't think I encountered a single one - certainly nothing that was more than a minor irritant, if that.

[canshow]

I've become way too spoiled because I couldn't stand the UI on shadow empire.

[Vandermeer]

I also played a lot of Stars! back then, though I think I never won a single game. I still remember the fun mechanics of minefields and how impressed I was with the modular ship design that this game pioneered. I think I only stopped when I couldn't find a fresh install for a new pc anymore, because the young google would pull up all kinds of obscene pictures and pages when you typed in "stars". ("suggestion: naked stars" )
Interesting to see that many Aurora players come from those origins.

I already presented this game years ago, Solar War, but though it is not really like Aurora, it definitely works in the same genre. The author wanted to make this into a galaxy spanning game and already had some random galaxy generation program presented, but it appears he never got there.

[Gyrfalcon]

Solar War is fun in the early and mid-game, stagnates in the late game where you're on the offensive and no longer challenged in any way by the aliens, and goes to crap on the final mission where you abandon any tactics that worked in the leadup and have to learn how the game designer decided the game should be played.

[Arwyn]

I would echo Shadow Empire. The interesting thing about the game is it can play VERY differently depending on the world you start on. Resource management can be pretty different depending on where you at.

The planet generation is pretty detailed and can make some pretty large differences in gameplay. Its a very different experience starting on a earth-like planet compared to one with an insidious atmosphere, no compatible biology (no eating local food, build ag domes), and incredibly hostile local wildlife. The tech tree is also fairly deep, and your going to go from roughly WW I tech levels to post modern.

Replay value is good, and the AI is decent, so its worth some time investment. And I will also second RTW, I have gotten a ton of value out of playing that game.