Sins of a Solar Empire: Discussion

[Bar]

First Thoughts:

So, I downloaded the Sins of a Solar Empire demo last night... and
then my head exploed.

There is a lot of game in Sins! The visuals (and especially the
ability to zoom way in and out) are awesome The sheer number of
options stunned me during my first game. I felt that the tutotial in
no way fully prepared me for running a successful galactic empire:

You can colonize worlds, send fleets into battle, negotiate alliances,
establish trade routes, develop orbital defenses, construct mining
fleets, spread propaganda, research all kinds of cool tehnology, and
on and on...

I, however, in the Grand Moff Tarkin tradition, just wanted to blow
some stuff up. And you can do that too!

So, in a word: "Overload". I think there's a very fun (time
consuming) game here, but there's also going to be a learning curve.

Anyone else up and running? Any advice for a fledgling Galactic
Emperor?

[JeffA]

I want to play this, but ran into snags. Nicole got really sick over
last week so spring break went to pot. Then gamestorm, and now to
finish taxes. So I think this one will need to stay on my "play
eventually" list...

Do you think my kids (5 and 3) will like to watch this be played?
They like to watch RTS games and have been bugging me to play more Red
Alert 3 (but I am waiting for the expansion).

Jeff

[880...@gmail.com]

Just got the game today. I'll let you know if I can even figure the
game out! :-)

[xo.nav...@gmail.com]

Might capture your 5 year old.... but not enough "action" for the 3
year old. IMO.

Brian is right, there is a lot going on in the game. Its a good
combination of CIV IV and Homeworld if you ask me. BUT, I much
preferred just the "blowing up" stuff in Homeworld. If you've never
played Homeworld, you've missed one of the greatest RTS games of all
time. Right up there with StarCraft and Warcraft III if you ask me.
The storyline was incredible deep, the music was fantastic (full
soundtrack by "Yes"), and the visuals of fighting through nebula were
eye popping.... but that is a review of a different game
alltogether...

Darin

[Bar]

Glad to see a few more players for Sins. I'm still having a good time
(and will probably pick up the full version), but I'm still a terrible
player. :-)

Jeff, for your kids, I think Sins may have less to see during the game
than other "ground-based" RTS. I find that I'm often operating at a
zoomed out view, showing planets. There's an 'empire view' window
that lets you manage multiple planets and fleets all without having to
click/select/zoom-in on the individual units. It makes Sins
*possible* to play, given the scope of the game, but I think it would
be less fun to actually watch over someone's shoulder than say a
Command and Conquer or Warcraft...

Thereis a built in record-game function. I believe you can rewatch
parts of games that you've played. That might be fun for the kids to
see the fights up close (or for you too, as sometimes you tend to miss
them in the chaos... or maybe that's just me!).

--Bar

[Bar]

Played my first game on "normal" difficulty. Thought I was doing
pretty well, until a fleet of 30 frigates and 2 capital ships rolled
into my homeworld.

Seriously, a little help here please!

--Bar

[880...@gmail.com]

I still haven't loaded the game, life has been really buys. I know
Kevin & Darrin have played it quite a bit, maybe they can comment.
Darrin is on vacation and may not be answering email.

-James

[Kevin Loveland]

I played it a number of months ago, but became very frustrated with the pirates...

 

When playing against adversaries, you must bribe the pirates every 25 turns or so to attack your adversaries. Although this is an interesting aspect of the game, there is no way to turn off this feature. And this is the ONLY strategy I found that works.

 

This became discouraging as it seemed I had to allocate most of my resources to bribe the pirates. If I ignored this aspect of the game, the pirates would attack me and always show up in the weakest system with a fleet that seemed to always be equal or greater to my entire fleet. The problem with the pirates is they are your only real weapon. If you ignore them, they and your adversaries will defeat you. If you use them, it requires too much of your resources to make a tactical attack on your adversaries.

 

I did try playing a game with just the pirates, which was a little lame. I found their system, which was... OMG... very tough to defeat and even after that the pirates came out of nowhere with a hoard that was a formidable challenge for my fleet. At this point I lost interest in the game.

 

It did get good reviews and I does try to give a RTS feel to a turn-based-strategy game. Although I think I liked Ascendecy a whole lot more which did the 4X thing before it was in vouge.

 

-kevin

[Bar]

Thanks for the tips Kevin. I haven't gotten back to a game yet, but I
will take a look at the alliances menu more carefully next time (I'd
mostly been just ignoring it up to this point).

Having given the matter more thought I realized I was not expanding
nearly fast enough, thus all of my income (especially the minerals and
crystals) were quite low. If I need to grow my empire AND bribe space
pirates, I'd best get those colony ships cranking!

--Bar