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RealGamer :: PC :: Reviews :: Lost Empire: Immortals Review

Lost Empire: Immortals Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 8th April 2008

Lost Empire: Immortals Score:

7 Good

One of my favourite strategy games ever is a turned based affair, of course I’m talking about the excellent Civilisation games from Firaxis, however not all turned based games are as good as Sid Meier’s offering but every once in a while a real gem can turn up out of the blue or in the case of Lost Empire: Immortals out of the black!

The story of Lost Empires: Immortals revolves around an ancient race of immortal beings that guided six mortal races into the depths of space, giving them the means to travel the stars. After a rapid period of colonisation, a great galactic war broke out all but decimating the immortal empire. As a result the six mortal races entered a period of self reflection returning to their home worlds and communication between the races was lost.

After a long period of time the thirst exploration returns to the six races, with each of them developing their own unique fleets to travel the stars and colonise the galaxy, however the last two remaining immortal beings still have a desire for power, and yes you’ve guessed it, the galaxy will be at war once more!

Lost Empire: The Immortals is a turn based space action strategy game, that allows you to create an expansive empire in the stars colonising new worlds and developing new technology and massive fleets of spaceships whilst making strategic alliances with other races. It all may sound a little overwhelming and to be honest some will find it just that, there’s a lot to learn but with a little time you will soon get to grips with the game.

As mentioned above Lost Empire: Immortals is a space based strategy game, meaning you have to build fleets of ships in order to add new planets to your empire. The game allows you to build several different types of ships, these include scout vessels, colony ships that are used to colonise planets, frigates, destroyers and battleships, as well as star bases. However, what makes Lost Empire Immortals different is that the game allows you to customise your ships by utilising different technology available to your race. You can’t change the look of your ship, which is unique to each of the six races, but you can decide what weapons technology, engine and shielding they have, enabling you to make ever more powerful fleets.

To make your empire grow you will need to colonise new planets, each planet has a meter which indicates what the best use of the planet will be and what resources are available. Resources come in the form of construction materials, minerals and agriculture and a planet can be colonised to act as a simple outpost, an agricultural planet to produce food for your empire, a trading post, a mining planet to gather minerals, a metropolis that increases the chance of finding a great leader for your empire, a second capital that reduces corruption in distant systems or a construction yard to produce ships for your fleet.

As your empire grows you will encounter, others races and here’s were diplomacy comes into play. You are able to offer gifts to ensure a smooth first encounter. If relations run smoothly then you will be able to form alliances and pacts, such as trade, non-aggression and combined forces agreements.

As well as being diplomatic with other races you will also have to deal with the two remaining immortals, who will often ask you to complete tasks, this part of the game began to cause me frustration, as when I accepted one task from one of the immortals I angered the other one who then declared war on me. In another game, I choose not to complete any missions for either which in turn angered both of them and they then went on to attack my colonies!
I found that diplomacy was one of the more difficult aspects to manage in the game as no matter how I approached relations with other races, I always seemed to anger them which resulted in conflict! Whilst this did go some way to add an element of action to the game, it can be a little annoying when you trying to expand a fledgling empire.

Other aspects of your empire you will have to manage, are the type of government, resource distribution and leader alignment. This is a very simple affair, as you simply go to the relevant screen and select your desired options, which as you would expect have there own benefits and disadvantages.

On the whole the game offers a pretty good challenge, especially the games diplomacy system! Hostile forces will often attack your planets and no matter how many times you destroy them, they will attack until you push them further back from the borders of your territory. The game is also rather engrossing and you can play for hours before you realise it. The game is also fairly open ended so you can keep coming back to it later without it feeling repetitive.

Graphically Lost Empire: Immortals is rather simple, systems in your empire are made up of stars with several planets orbiting around them and look pretty good. Ships are unique to each race with an individual style and fit the part. A nice touch in the game is being able to watch battles that take place in the game. However, you are unable to influence battles you are watching in anyway.

Sound in the game is largely absent, apart from a sci-fi style soundtrack that loops in the background as you play. Other then that there’s nothing to report, but what there is fits the setting of the game.

Lost Empire: Immortals does have it weaknesses, yet the game still does offers a good challenge and engrossing playing experience, that should appeal to fans of space based strategy games, although it’s steep learning curve may make the game a little less appealing to the more casual strategy gamer.