StrategyFront Gaming

Ambition in Design

A game that was billed as a cross between Dune and Warhammer 40K? Game of Thrones-esque Space Feudalism? Count me in.

Emperor of the Fading Suns is a 4X Space strategy game released by Holistic Design in 1997. But the game is so much more than just another space 4X.

In general, Space 4X games since Master of Orion and Master of Orion 2, haven’t been great. Most have shunned innovation for the tried and true methods set down my Master of Orion.

Emperor of the Fading Suns radically changes the standard formula in several ways, so much so that there really isn’t anything else like it today. 

Background

Coming from Holistic Design, the studio that brought us gems such as Machiavelli: The Prince, and Final Liberation: Warhammer 40K, the designers at Holistic now wanted to do something different. 

So they created their own universe.

The Fading Suns universe originally started as a homebrew role-playing setting at Holistic, which would become the grimdark setting for Emperor of the Fading Suns.

The game is not like any other 4X game you’ve ever played. Don’t believe me? How many games of Civilization have you played spread across 40 maps simultaneously, with another space map where you manage fleets of starships.

None? Yeah me neither. 

Beyond the immense scale, you also are dealing with complex politics and diplomacy. You see, in Emperor of the Fading Suns, you aren’t just a civilization out to conquer the galaxy because that’s just what space Empires do.

Instead, you’re one of five Noble Houses looking to put your family on the Imperial Throne. It’s more Game of Thrones than Star Wars.

This means you’ll have to wheel and deal with the other Houses, the Church, and the League to backstab your way to the Throne. 

Setting of Fading Suns

When I first heard that Emperor of the Fading Suns was a cross between Dune and Warhammer 40K I was skeptical. Both properties are unique and it’s difficult to translate their specific strengths onto another property.

Luckily for us, Holistic Design knew what they were doing. The Fading Suns universe is deep, interesting, and atmospheric. 

The game’s background is detailed in Emperor of the Fading Suns’ manual which is an excellent read. 

It’s written from an in-universe perspective and reminds me of the original Homewoorld’s manual, in its evocative writing bringing the setting to life.

A short primer on the state of the Fading Suns:

Human civilization nearly collapsed after the Second Republic, leading to much of Humanities former empire fragmenting. 

The core of the humans formed themselves into the Empire, united by Vladimir Alecto, who can be seen dying in the intro cinematic.

The “Known Worlds” are split between feuding noble houses, the Church, and the scheming League all tied together in a messy neo-feudal arrangement.

On top of this, there are many minor houses and lesser alien races who aren’t featured in the game. 

So once Vladimir Alecto is mysteriously assassinated, the five Houses must now elect a Regent every ten years since they can’t decide on a replacement for Emperor. 

As the noble Houses feud and bicker, the Tyranid-like Symbiots press on the borders of the Empire. Threatening to consume everyone.

Oh and on top of all of that the suns are dying.

Overview

You begin the game by choosing one of the five houses, your leader portrait, and the game settings. Once you choose your house you will be able to choose your starting bonuses and weaknesses to customize your house to your playstyle.

The bonuses you can choose to range from starting with some technology already unlocked, have troops start with higher loyalty,  or have a friend in the Church, to name a few. You must also choose negative traits, such as having enemies in the church or League or being insane.

Emperor of the Fading Suns then immediately drops you into the game and you’ll be staring at the galactic map.

As I said before, each of the 40 planets has its own Civilization-style map. With its own cities, continents, and oceans.

What I love about Emperor of the Fading Suns is how often it breaks the tropes of 4X Strategy Games. 

Instead of each faction monolithically controlling a planet, multiple factions can be present on a planet, since control is based on cities. 

This means you won’t fully control your home planets at the beginning of the game. Some cities will be controlled by Imperial Agencies, other Houses, or rebels. 

The planets themselves are also extremely different. The snowy cities of Delphi are extremely different from the sprawling Ecumenopolis of Byzantium Secundus. There’s also a map of actual Earth, which is renamed “Holy Terra”.

This adds a layer of depth needed in most games. Space can be incredibly boring, and it is in most space strategy games. 

That’s largely because most of the drama we love about Space Operas is interpersonal, the giant space battles are just a plus.  

Emperor of the Fading Suns moving the core conflict to the worlds themselves helps to serve this. Now when you bomb a planet from orbit you’ll actually need to choose the cities you’re destroying, and defenders can build a planetary shield or planetary defense guns.

By not abstracting things plant-side, they can create a more meaningful player experience by connecting you to these planets.

Victory Conditions & Politics

Your goal in Emperor of the Fading Suns is also unlike other games. Gone are the multiple victory paths of Civilization. Instead, you have one goal, secure enough votes to become the Emperor.

While there’s only one way to win the game, there are a number of options you have on how to get there. First, you’ll need to gather enough votes to become the Regent. 

But how you do this is up to the player. In a brilliant move, each vote you get in each house has scepters that count as votes. 

Scepters are actual units represented in the game, so like resources, they can be captured, depriving other houses of their votes.

Every ten years there will be elections when imperial offices are elected. The offices are Regent, Stigmata, Imperial Eye(spies), and Imperial Fleet.

You can buy and sell offices if you’re planning on becoming Regent or backing someone else. Which really makes you feel like a back-dealing Feudal lord, positioning their Dynasty for the Throne. 

The House that Wins the Regency can appoint the other offices. If you promised offices to other houses during the election you can choose to keep or break those however you see fit.

If you win the Regency you can declare yourself Emperor. You’ll then need to win two subsequent elections for Emperor while the other Houses attempt to destroy you.

This requires a strong power-base and careful preparation, once you go for the Throne, all bets are off and you’ll need to work diligently to maintain your Hegemony.

The Imperial Eye and Fleet are pretty straight forward. The Eye gives you access to a number of bases and spies across the empire, allowing you to keep tabs on your enemies, without committing any of your House’s resources. 

While the Imperial Fleet gives you control of the High-Tech battle fleet of the Empire. Since this is a technological dark age no one can build these ships at the beginning of the game. So these will be incredibly precious and powerful.

Stigmata is the most interesting as it’s a tough trade-off. The Stigmata are a military order tasked with holding off the Tyranid-like Symbiots at a crucial chokepoint before they can overrun the Empire. 

You have access to highly advanced ships, space marines, and tanks: namely, you have the most powerful army in the Empire at your disposal.

But if you want to make use of it against your political enemies you’ll need to pull them back from the desperate defense against the Symbiots. 

This in itself is a trade-off, as perhaps your worlds are near Stigmata, and you’ll want to reinforce the defense. Or maybe your enemies are near the planet and allowing the Symbiots through. Since it will force your enemies to spend precious time and resources fending off that threat. 

The Political system in Emperor of the Fading Suns is so well thought out that it pains me that it completely doesn’t work. The main problem being the AI, which we will get into later. 

Diplomacy

The diplomacy system is expansive, you can trade technologies, votes, and resources. You offer or demand up to three things in a deal. Meaning you can be flexible in what you give or ask for. 

One of the most valuable trading items in Emperor of the Fading Suns is votes. You will need to convince your rival houses to give you these through the trading system. 

Dealing with the Church allows you to excommunicate certain players, ban technologies that might be useful to your enemies, or grant you bonuses. 

Factions

Each faction in Emperor of the Fading Suns has its own unique style. The five Houses are all your standard archetypes for a noble family. 

The Hawkwood are the play off the Atreides from Dune. These are your standard “good guys” who canonically win the Emperor Wars conflict in the Fading Suns universe. 

The Decados, whose name literally sounds like decadence, is the Harkonnen stand-in from Dune. They’re known for being hedonistic, and perhaps fittingly their home planet is full of oil. 

The Al-Malik are middle-eastern inspired. They have close relations with the Merchants League and are one of the two main houses bordering Stigmata. The other being the Hawkwood. 

The Hazat are based on Spanish culture. In the lore, they border a foreign human empire called the Kurgan Caliphate, which they’ve often warred with. Although the Kurgan don’t appear in Emperor of the Fading Suns.

The Li Halan are based around Asian culture, I haven’t played them enough to know exactly what their starting planets are like. 

I wish that Emperor of the Fading Suns fleshed each house out more, giving them different units and specific buildings or traits to further diversify them. 

Beyond the playable Houses, you have the two other Human factions: The League and The Church. 

The Merchant League will run the Agoras on each planet, acting as the mercantile intermediary facilitating trade between the Houses. You can buy any goods you’re missing from the Agora, and there’s one on each planet.

In another show of Emperor of the Fading Suns’ interesting design, The League doesn’t just act as intermediaries. If they become powerful enough (by having 300,000 credits) they can declare a new Republic, essentially breaking off from the Empire, and attempting to reform the old Human Republic.  

This means they have access to advanced units and will go to war with all other factions. Creating another threat where before there was simply your hard-nosed trading partners.

The Church holds a huge amount of power in the Emperor of the Fading Suns. They directly control a few planets, such as Earth, and have their own armies and fleet. Their main interaction with the player will be to ban certain technologies. 

If the player is currently researching these techs the Church will send an inquisitor to destroy your heretical lab, or you may be forced to abandon the technology. 

The last two factions in Emperor of the Fading Suns are the alien Symbiots and the Vau. 

The Symbiots are akin to the Tyranids or the Zerg. They’re a hive-mind race of bugs looking to overrun civilized space. They often end up being little more than a minor nuisance in the base game since their AI won’t build new fleets once their main one is destroyed.

The Vau are similar to the Protoss or the Eldar. They’re a mysterious race with highly advanced technology but mostly keep to themselves. Each House has an embassy on a Vau border world and can trade with them, they especially like maps of your planets.

Resources & Tech

In most 4X games researching new technology is always good, always pushes civilization further. 

But Emperor of the Fading Suns is set in a technological dark age. Technology is often seen as malicious or insidious and is liable to get your research labs destroyed by the inquisition.

Research can be done through different labs, with one technology being researched by each lab. So for every lab, you have the more techs you can research simultaneously.

Resources are collected by buildings, automatically. Resources are units themselves, they can be shipped, stolen, or destroyed. Buildings can also consume resources to function meaning you’ll need an income of certain resources to keep your higher-tech buildings running.

With universal warehouse off the game becomes really interesting, now all resources aren’t shared between planets. Instead, you’ll have to make sure each planet is self-sufficient or that you have supply lines set up to keep them running.

You’ll also have to plan for any military action, any planetary invasion will now need food brought along with it.

Combat & Units

I’ve seen some things in Emperor of the Fading Suns.

I’ve seen troop transports blown to bits as they breach the atmosphere of Aragon. Byzantium Secundus, torn to shreds as the houses vie for domination. Horrors on Stigmata as the Symbiots eat cities alive.

Seriously though, there are some great moments in this game if you can get passed the micromanagement.

Emperor of the Fading Suns uses a now admittedly outdated system of unit stacks to handle combat.

What unit stacking does allow for is combat phases. The first phase is indirect which allows artillery to fire, then air, and finally direct where most units will engage. 

These phases mean you’ll need diverse stacks of units, as your death stack of space marines will be torn apart without anti-air cover.

Unit production and movement require a huge degree of micromanagement, much to the game’s detriment. You’ll have to manage multiple stacks across multiple planets, it’s all incredibly finicky with the 1997 UI and controls. 

There’s really no good way to keep track of all your different armies besides just cycling between which units haven’t moved yet. It’s all tedious micromanagement.

You’ll also have to deal with space combat which is a good deal simpler. 

Where this level of detail does shine is that raiding, piracy, and hit and run tactics actually can make an impact in the game. Destroying the enemy’s shield generator with a crack squad of troops could open the whole planet up to an invasion. 

You can also use your starships to bombard enemy armies before using planetary carriers to assault the surface.

Critique

From all this, the game probably sounds amazing, and that’s because it is… on paper. The core problem with the game stems from the AI and its general incompetence. 

Playing against the AI for any length of time will show you just how utterly inept and broken they are. 

The League will build normal units even when they have access to much better Third Republic units. The Symbiots will cease to be a threat once their first fleet is destroyed, making the main driving force in the game dead in the water.

All that incredibly complex micromanagement that the player finds so difficult, well it’s doubly complex for the AI. 

The level of micromanagement here is truly mind-numbing

Emperor of the Fading Suns was not a commercial success on release, one reason was the terrible AI but the other was simply that the game isn’t finished. 

There are other sects of the Church which are in the UI but absent from the game. There seem to be some systems added last minute, and others which were half stipped out. 

Mods for Emperor of the Fading Suns

Even with these changes, Emperor of the Fading Suns became a cult classic. 

That being so it spawned a number for mods that fix the massive problems with the game. There are three main contenders for overhaul mods you should check out: Hyperion, Nova, and Emperor Wars.

The Nova Mod looks to keep the feeling of the vanilla game without changing too much of the units or buildings. If you’re looking to get an updated vanilla experience today, then this is the mod for you.

Hyperion goes further, it makes changes to the AI, resources, and how units work to rebalance the game and give it more challenge. Hyperion makes the game more complex mechanically, and it can be more confusing for new players to learn but is great for multiplayer. 

The final mod is also my favorite, it’s the Emperor Wars mod. This mod focuses on booth mechanical rebalancing and adding a huge amount of new lore units and overall flavor based on the Fading Suns universe. 

Each faction in Emperor Wars now has its own unique units based on the Minor houses that make up that house. They also can recruit new mercenaries, alien auxiliary, and economic units like peasants.  

With all these changes the AI does have trouble keeping up with Emperor Wars. I’d only recommend it if you’re a lore-buff like me since it really does make the Fading Suns universe come alive. 

Conclusion

Emperor of the Fading Suns is a game that deserves a remake. Many of its ideas are downright brilliant even though the execution was often lacking. The level of micromanagement and lack of challenging AI means that many players will be turned off by this. 

Emperor of the Fading Suns was a genetic dead end for gaming. Many ideas here would only show up again as recently as in Crusader Kings 2 and that’s a very different context. 

You have political drama, feudal houses, and ravaging aliens. All the ingredients for a great game in an interesting universe are there. 

Played against the computer the game vacillates between being a cakewalk and tedious micromanagement. Played by Email against friends the game shines as a complex politically focused 4X.

It’s sad to see there hasn’t been anything else like it tried, and I hope that we can see something with as much ambition as Emperor of the Fading Suns. 

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