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StarChart-Interactive are currently developing Dominus Galaxia, a 4x strategy game inspired by the classic Master of Orion.

Their aim with Dominus Galaxia is to be an upgraded spiritual successor to the original Master of Orion, they said to think of it like if Master of Orion 2 was a proper sequel and not a "a radical re-imagining".

It's currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter which has 10 days to go with nearly 50% of the funding needed, with a bit of a stretch it may be able to make it. Just recently, they put up a full demo of the game with Linux support on itch.io.

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Feature Highlight:

  • Streamlined, slider-based colony management and fleet movement. No build queues to micromanage.
  • Turn-based, hex-based tactical combat, Including turn costs, powerful special devices, and various terrain types.
  • Various types of strategic terrain including impassable nebula, slow nebula, sensor blocking nebula, (optional) star-lanes, wormholes, and (optional) transient wormholes.
  • Great gameplay customizability including different expansion modes (build colony ships, build starports or just send colonists directly), optional star-lanes, research modes, etc. that alter the feel of the game and add replayability.
  • Choice between static and adaptive AIs, where AI production bonuses can be set independently of skill level. (you can play against smart AIs that have less production than you, dumb ones that have more, and anything in-between).
  • Hotseat multiplayer, with networked multiplayer tentatively planned by version 1.0 (but could slip later).
  • Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch game modes — for those who prefer a pure war-game over one with diplomacy.
  • An infinite, semi-random tech tree divided into six fields which can be researched concurrently.

The developer of Dominus Galaxia has been pretty active in our community recently too, doing some Linux testing with users in our Discord Channel which is good to see. Shows they care about the Linux version. If you do try out the Linux demo and you have an AMD GPU, be sure to use the launch script to run it with Vulkan as it has issues with OpenGL currently.

You can find the demo here and Kickstarter campaign here. For the full release they're planning to have it up on both Steam and itch.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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8 comments

iiari Oct 16, 2019
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Interesting, I'm gonna watch this one... I haven't played a 4x title in ages, as there are baked-in elements of the genre I find frustrating, but the dev seems to have addressed many of those here.
Tchey Oct 16, 2019
On my Manjaro, the game crash while loading a new game. I can access menu and all, but when i'm done, i see the loading screen, and crash to desktop without warning.

However, if i go to local folder and open a Terminal to launch the game, it works, showing this :

./Dominus\ Galaxia.x86_64
Set current directory to /home/tchey/Jeux/dominus-galaxia
Found path: /home/tchey/Jeux/dominus-galaxia/Dominus Galaxia.x86_64
[S_API FAIL] SteamAPI_Init() failed; SteamAPI_IsSteamRunning() failed.
[S_API FAIL] SteamAPI_Init() failed; unable to locate a running instance of Steam, or a local steamclient.so.

So i can play, but not from itchio.


Last edited by Tchey on 16 October 2019 at 1:02 pm UTC
Liam Dawe Oct 16, 2019
Quoting: TcheyOn my Manjaro, the game crash while loading a new game. I can access menu and all, but when i'm done, i see the loading screen, and crash to desktop without warning.

However, if i go to local folder and open a Terminal to launch the game, it works, showing this :

./Dominus\ Galaxia.x86_64
Set current directory to /home/tchey/Jeux/dominus-galaxia
Found path: /home/tchey/Jeux/dominus-galaxia/Dominus Galaxia.x86_64
[S_API FAIL] SteamAPI_Init() failed; SteamAPI_IsSteamRunning() failed.
[S_API FAIL] SteamAPI_Init() failed; unable to locate a running instance of Steam, or a local steamclient.so.

So i can play, but not from itchio.
Worked out of the box for me on Manjaro. I just used the launch script with Vulkan because why not, worked well for me.
PublicNuisance Oct 16, 2019
I was able to play the demo on Manjaro. No issues when using the Vulkan launcher. The openG launcher wouldn't even get to the main screen. I didn't have Steam running while I played so I am not sure what the other users error message was about. I could only give them $1 due to tight times but hopefully they can reach their goal.

AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 19.2.1 | Manjaro 18.1 | Mate 1.22.2 | Kernel 5.3.6-1-MANJARO
Tchey Oct 16, 2019
Quoting: Liam DaweWorked out of the box for me on Manjaro. I just used the launch script with Vulkan because why not, worked well for me.

It was an issue with itchio launching the game with -force-vulkan by default even on machines not Vulkanized.

Now they have updated the launcher to select Play, or Play (Vulkan).

You can read details if you like on Discord : https://discordapp.com/channels/337611997921280000/632090398919098388
dpanter Oct 16, 2019
AMD userss - if you feel like tinkering, Vulkan with RADV vs. AMDVLK gives quite different performance results for me, and there's word that ACO runs the OpenGL version well (haven't tested DG with ACO myself yet).


Last edited by dpanter on 16 October 2019 at 9:15 pm UTC
Purple Library Guy Oct 16, 2019
I've yacked before a few times about how there were interesting ideas and approaches in MOO I that got discarded in the genre due to the stampede to work planets like Civilization cities, and wondered what could be done with those ideas today. But I never thought someone would make the game I was musing about. Not only do I want this game, I feel like it's my duty to buy it.

Ed. to add: OK, and the background music to that video clip is the piece I have always said is the pinnacle of perfect music for space games, Mars from Holst's planets.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 16 October 2019 at 9:47 pm UTC
Purple Library Guy Oct 17, 2019
Well, money where mouth is. I went and backed it, which I normally never ever do. Then I downloaded the demo/beta thing and gave it a whirl.
First, it works fine. On a laptop with Intel graphics that is not ancient but was never really meant to be a game machine. Mostly pretty snappy even. Turn processing gets a little slow, but I bet it would be way faster on my desktop, and considering work on performance improvement is likely still in the future, pretty good.
Second, it's pretty operational as a game. You can only play a couple of the races so far, and occasionally you'll see an entry in the tech tree that's grayed out and hovering over it with the mouse gets a message saying "Not yet implemented", but other than that, yeah, it works, it's functional.
As to the game itself . . . it's MOO I looking pretty and modern and with UI improvements. For better or worse, that's currently pretty much exactly what it is. The technologies are about the same, the sliders are the same, the races have different names but are mostly pretty recognizable in concept. Weapon/shield tech seems more like MOO II if my memory serves. And so, OK, just like MOO I it has a pretty good "Just one more turn" factor going, and just like MOO I colony management is pretty uncluttered and clean--maybe even more so.
But I must admit I was left with a bit of a "Is that all there is?" feeling. I was kind of looking for an evolution from MOO I, not MOO I itself with a face lift. Now mind you, this is presumably not what we're going to end up with--it's a working game, but it's also still at kickstarter phase. Plus it's apparently moddable as all hell, so there's possibilities there. So, well, we'll see.
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