History VideoGame / SpaceEmpires

* SubsystemDamage: A very good example. Once the armour and shields are breached, your or enemy's weapons will inflict damage both on the hull structure and also on the equipment inside, starting from the direction of the breach. Attacking from behind will knock out or cripple ship's engines first, leaving it unable to flee anywhere, while shots to the side will quickly reach the power generators and prevent the ship from shooting back.

''Space Empires Starfury'' was released in 2003, and was a GenreShift from 4X to placing the player as the Captain of a single starship. Campaigns and other systems allowed them to develop their character, ship and so on whilst following a general plot. It was not as well recieved as the main series, no doubt in part due to the shift.

* CloningBlues

* EscortMission: There are some side quests where you have to protect traders or frigates/destroyers in a certain star system until a given date. They’re a lot better than most examples, as the traders will move on their own and you’re allowed to fly around however you like as you long as the ships are protected. Most importantly, the enemies after the ship you’re protecting will be present in the system from the get-go, and never spawn out of nowhere in front of your nose.
* GameBreaker: The Amonkrie Toxic Torpedoes turn into this at high levels, when their crew damage goes over 200. Given that unlike shields and armor, the number of crewmembers remains fairly static, you’ll be able to one-shot Destroyers and Cruisers with a volley of 2-3 torpedoes, and finish Battleships and Aircraft Carriers with 6-8. You would need still to watch out for Amonkrie ships in case they have those torpedoes, as they’ll also destroy you in two shots unless you install medical bays and/or additional crew quarters.

* RammingAlwaysWorks: Played with. The game takes the ship’s size, speed and the severity of collision into effect to calculate the outcome. As a Battleship, you can get lucky and score a glancing hit on a Destroyer, severely damaging it and only losing your shields in return. In contrast, a Destroyer ramming a fighter or a satellite head-first might easily end up with half its health gone and all of the frontal and center equipment wrecked.

* ArbitraryMaximumRange: Weapons have a maximum range that is baffling. Most direct-fire weapons just conk out and don't do decreasing amounts of damage the further they are from their target.
** This is usually hand-waved to some extent by "maximum ''viable'' range": that round CAN go much farther, but you have little hope of hitting the target either from decreasing accuracy or the target moving; doesn't explain why it's so hard to hit a ''planet''...

->''Emperor [[HelloInsertNameHere [insert name here]]], Your Empire awaits...''

Based on information from Wiki/TheOtherWiki:

** They become a bit more inportant in 4, where they are autotargeting and autofiring, and most other weapons can't harm missiles.

The series also includes ''Starfury'', a GaidenGame of sorts set in the Space Empires universe.

According to Malfador's own page, the first Space Empires was made in 1993 by Aaron Hall. Two years later, Malfador Machinations was formed, and Space Empires had been polished enough to become Space Empires II - released as shareware.

Another two years later in 1997, with the help of a friend-turned-coworker, Space Empires III was released, again as shareware. It was in Space Empires 3 that detailed orders, increased map sizes and simple graphical modifications were introduced.

In the summer of '98, work began on the fourth offering of the series, and it was completed two years later in July 2000. Space Empires IV massively expanded upon the third game with new unit types, diplomatic relations, political relations, graphical enhancements, and improvements on the features of Space Empires III.

Space Empires ''Starfury'' was released in 2003, and was a GenreShift from 4X to placing the player as the Captain of a single starship. Campaigns and other systems allowed them to develop their character, ship and so on whilst following a general plot. It was not as well recieved as the main series, no doubt in part due to the shift.

Three years later (in 2006) the fifth 4X, Space Empires V, was released. Expanding into 3D strategic and tactical views, it also brought real-time tactical combat to the table, helping to offset some of the inherent flaws in a TurnBasedCombat system. The fanbase is somewhat divided over V (TheyChangedItNowItSucks syndrome) and some insist that modification is vital to improving even basic gameplay... but that could be said of all [[strike:[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight religions]]]] of the games in the series.

Due to customization, it's possible to find all sorts of scifi tropes in the Space Empires series. Let's try and focus on the ones in the stock games, okay?

* AIIsACrapshoot: Averted for {{master computer}} controlled ships. They function almost identically to crewed ships, only being susceptible to computer viruses instead of mind control.

* AllPlanetsAreEarthlike: In the official artwork, only the Rocky Oxygen atmosphere planets fit.
* AlienInvasion: Anytime anyone invades anyone else.

* ApocalypseHow: With Stellar Manipulation, you can destroy planets and stars, but [[NewTechIsNotCheap at a massive cost]]. You can even turn a star into a nebula or black hole.
** And in an inversion, you can destroy black holes, clear out nebulae, create stars, and form a planet out of the chunks of asteroids left over from the kaboom. And they are instantly viable worlds ready for colonization, even if you blew them up just a month ago.
*** Don't like the type/atmosphere combo you got from reforming the planet? ''Blow it up again!''

** Averted by modifications in many cases.
** And when not, usually hand-waved to some extent by "maximum ''viable'' range": that round CAN go much farther, but you have little hope of hitting the target either from decreasing accuracy or the target moving; doesn't explain why it's so hard to hit a ''planet''...
* ArmorIsUseless: Averted. It's useful for soaking up damage pre-shields, and can have special effects such as restoring shield energy or regenerating damage. However...

** The sequels are getting increasingly complex, however. In the third, ships lose supplies in a fixed rate, regardless of whether they move. In [=SE4=], the concept of supplies is expanded - most things on a ship now cost some amount of supply to use, like weapons and engines. By the fifth game, weapons need ordnance that is separate from general ship supply.

* FasterThanLightTravel: Averted. There is none whatsoever, and all interstellar travel is done through wormholes. However, since you can put a wormhole generator on a ship, you can technically have a jump drive.

* GameBreakingBug: Space Empires V runs on a 3-D engine that is exceedingly dated nowadays. The reason why this is bad? If you aren't running the game with a Windows XP OS, the game drops to single digit FPS levels. This makes the game neigh unplayable and since the developers shut its doors its unlikely a official fix will ever be published.
* GameMod

* GenericanEmpire
* GenesisEffect: Yep, you can recreate planets that you've blown up.

* ShoutOut: Well-hidden one - In [=SE5=], one of the distant-background nebulae looks suspiciously similar to a [[Franchise/StarTrek Federation insignia]].

* {{Spinoff}}: Space Empires: Starfury, which is more like {{Privateer}} or VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}.

* TractorBeam: And repulsor beams, too.

* YouRequireMoreVespeneGas: %%Minerals, Organics and Radioactives.
** When playing Space Empires III without shield generators, either because you decided not to use them (which is a viable strategy due the high cost and large size of shield generators) or haven't researched them yet, not having enough shipyards can be a major problem.

Administrivia/NeedsABetterDescription.

* ApocalypseHow: With Stellar Manipulation, you can destroy planets and stars, but [[NewTechnologyIsExpensive at a massive cost]]. You can even turn a star into a nebula or black hole.

* ApocalypseHow: Runs the gamut from Societal Disruption all the way to Stellar Annihilation. You don't just destroy stars, you can create black holes.

* ApocalypseHow: With Stellar Manipulation, you can destroy planets and stars, but [[NewTechnologyIsExpensive at a massive cost]]. You can even turn a star into a nebula or black hole.
** And in an inversion, you can destroy black holes, clear out nebulae, create stars, and form a planet out of the chunks of asteroids left over from the kaboom. And they are instantly viable worlds ready for colonization, even if you blew them up just a month ago.
*** Don't like the type/atmosphere combo you got from reforming the planet? ''Blow it up again!''

* HadToBeSharp: The Sishrak, who have a reputation for being war-mongers and a ProudWarriorRace because, in the world they come from, they're at the bottom of the food chain and behaving aggressively towards all other life-forms is the only way they can survive.

* GenreShift: Starfury

* HumanoidAliens

* PhotoprotoneutronTorpedo

* PortalNetwork: Both natural and artificial.

* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Jraenar's hat. They're also LizardFolk.
* PsychicPowers: The Psychic Technology Tree.

* YouRequireMoreVespeneGas: Minerals, Organics and Radioactives.

* AlienKudzu: Which infests an entire star system.
* {{Antimatter}}: But of course.

* ArtificialGravity
* AsteroidMiners: Automated.

* BeamSpam
* BigDumbObject: Ringworlds and Dyson Spheres. Also possibly starbases, baseships and such.

* EnergyBeings: The Eee.
** ElectricJellyfish: The flavor text for the Eee basically calls them this.

* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Jraenar's hat. They're also [[TheReptilians Reptilians]].

* EnergyWeapon: The Energy Pulse and Energy beam weapon branches of the tech tree. Surprisingly, [[FrickinLaserBeams no Lasers]], or at least things called Lasers outright.