Sid Meier runs through Starships’ customization and a small battle

Does he make it despite an estimated 40% chance of success?

Last month 2K and Firaxis announced Sid Meier’s Starships, a strategy game set in the Civilization universe, continuing the story that Beyond Earth set up. With an impending spring release, it looks like it is pretty far along, and the team at Firaxis has been streaming gameplay weekly on its Twitch channel.

In this episode, Sid Meier takes us through the customization of ships, building three vessels that behave differently from one another. One is equipped with lasers for long-range fighting, another is heavily armored and has cannons for short range, and the third has fighters and torpedoes to remain out of line of sight of enemy ships. The video above is long; if you want to see the customization, check out the window between 5:13 and 7:41.

Some details of battle are shown, like the importance of flanking in order to take advantage of the directionality of shields and the ability for torpedoes to be remotely detonated along the path. The ties to Civilization: Beyond Earth are also apparent; leaders, affinities, and structure design all appear here.