‘Star Dynasties’ Is the ‘Crusader Kings’ in Space That We’ve Always Wanted

One of the big draws of grand strategy games like Crusader Kings III is the emergent narratives that they create. The varying scales of political machinations allowed by those systems create a web of intrigue, betrayal, and warfare that makes for great drama, but can be overwhelming to new players. Star Dynasties, a sci-fi take of the Crusader Kings model, mitigates some of that overwhelm in two ways.

First, the scale of the map is comparatively small, making it easier to understand the ramifications of your actions on the game state. Second, the systems focus down on the political sphere more than other games in this space. Even things like warfare (which often in this genre will boil down to how many space ships you can build then throw at an enemy) pull more on your political connections to determine how large your forces will be. We discuss our time with Star Dynasties on this episode of Waypoint Radio.

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