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Neptunes Pride is a new browser based game from Iron Helmet. The premise is a simple 4X game where up to 8 players compete to control a set number of stars, at which point they are declared the victor. The game takes place on a Flash-based map of the Galaxy from which you conduct your conquests. It is designed so that you just need to log in once or twice a day and issue a few orders.

The mechanics are straightforward – you control planets which you upgrade to provide you with resources (money, ships and research). On each planet you can upgrade the economy, the industry and the science, with each successive upgrade getting more expensive. Some planets are better than others, in that they are cheaper to upgrade. From these you create fleets which you can send out to capture other planets, which are mostly uninhabited at the start of the game and are teeming with other players by the end.

Money is earned every 24 hours based on the levels of your economy across your planets. It is mainly used to upgrade planets and build carriers to transport your ships around, but can also be used to pay tribute to other players. The implementation of ships is interesting – you can never directly build ships, instead you have to improve the industry levels on your planets which makes them produce ships at a faster rate. This means you have to do quite a bit of planning ahead as it takes time to raise a fleet, you can’t just hold back some cash in case you need one quickly. Research is earned by upgrading the science of planets. It is the most expensive upgrade, and controls how quickly you advance your technology.

What I consider to be the most interesting part of the game is the amount of forward planning you must do. It takes hours, sometimes days for you to get your fleets to where you want them so you need to expand slowly but surely. You also get situations where two fleets are unaware of each other and are heading towards the same star. Once you set a fleet off going you can’t cancel the trip and so once you see the other fleet it is too late to turn them around, at which point either you or they will get destroyed. This can also make for tense hours if you are trying to sneak in an attack but your opponent has closer units which he can get there before you.

The combat itself isn’t anything complicated. Each player has a weapons stat which they upgrade through research, and combat is worked out based on this stat and your respective fleet sizes. It pays to be the defender as they get to strike first and a bonus to weapons. I think this needs tweaking slightly as currently being on defense seems to give you almighty powers – check out this battle where 1 ship was able to destroy 4 of my 20 strong fleet just by being the defender. I was expecting to lose 1-2 ships here at most.

At the moment most games are free but you can also buy credits which let you make your own games with custom settings. I haven’t tried one of these yet as the free games have been fine so far, apart from the issue of players dropping out (although the game handles this quite gracefully and just puts them under AI control until they come back). I’ve joined a game with some people who should be more reliable at staying interested, so I may start posting day by day reports of that one shortly.