Most interesting however is the fact that the developer has finally conceded a little on its stance to keep each player’s randomized tech tree unique. You can now offer to trade certain research projects with other players, but with some interesting limitations – primarily, being able to only exchange certain projects (depending on a number of factors) stops one player from “mass dumping” a whole bunch of unfamiliar tech onto another in an unbalancing, unrealistic way. Furthermore, trading the tech doesn’t actually give the other player the ability to ‘use’ it right away, only the option to research it themselves. And no, you can’t do something silly like give the Human’s “Node Drive” technology to the Liir – each propulsion type is still strictly race-specific.

Much like how Born of Blood introduced the “Zuul”, this latest expansion puts forth equal effort into presenting the new “Morrigi” race. The series has always given special focus on keeping each race’s mode of travel unique, and the Morrigi are no exception. The new race moves through the galaxy using a “swarm” or “flock” theory – while a single ship can travel to any system in range within a decent amount of time, results are best obtained when you pile a whole bunch of ships into a single fleet, and combine them with the new “Gravboat” hulls (which cause friendly ships in a fleet to go much faster, and enemy ships in combat to go slower when deployed).

Aesthetic-wise, I’m also happy to say that the art team behind the game haa pulled off some amazing visuals yet again with the new race. The Morrigi ships have a distinctly elegant, bird-like appearance and serve as an exact contrast to the Zuul’s patchwork, crude (yet artistically interesting) designs, but a really cool touch to watch for is how they transform during a fight. When enemy ships come in range, pylons and armor plates sweep back and expose a vessel’s gun ports, setting it into a sort of “combat mode”. This is a new kind of animation I’ve not previously seen with the series, and I really love the extra touch. This race also pairs well with the new beam lasers and “Drone” technology, turning combat scenes into something I’d expect to see out of Babylon 5.

While I’ve commented on some of the most significant new features that contribute to the gameplay experience, there are still a lot of little changes to discover in this expansion that I won’t cover for the sake of brevity – such as the completely new random encounters, the combat system improvements (including the ability to force an enemy to surrender his colony to you without firing a shot, once you’ve sufficiently researched their culture), and even the addition of a special “Q-Ship” freighter that can be built, for those who like exploiting the game’s trade route options but have problems with raiding parties.

Despite these enhancements, there are still a few areas for improvement. One thing that stands out is the new “morale” system – the only way I could find to view a planet’s morale was by going to each planet and clicking the special population icon – a somewhat tedious process late-game when it would be much easier to compile this information into the at-a-glance “Colony Overview” list already built into the interface. And while the game’s combat engine delivers some of the best graphics and animations I’ve seen in any recent 4X game, I still can’t help but crave even more detail, such as more complex damage scarring on a ship’s hull, or visible maneuvering thrusters.

These are minor complaints; Sword of the Stars: A Murder of Crows is what the de-facto sci-fi 4X experience is all about and while there should be no question that any existing fan should absolutely pick this up, there’s also more than enough here to interest newcomers as well. Just be prepared – the fact that I’m writing this at four in the morning while trying to decide if I really should hit that “End Turn” button in the game window one more time, or just go to bed is evidence of how easily this game can destroy your sleep-cycle, social life, and any other practices you might happen to care about which don’t involve playing it.

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