Sins of a Solar Empire - First Impressions (56k)

I finished up my first game of Sins of a Solar Empire today (after completing the tutorials). I don't know quite what to take away from it, or how to explain it. It's different - RT4X is the right word for the genre, and it certainly plays too slowly, and in too relaxing of a way to really be called an RTS. I'd almost classify it as a cross between an MMO and a TBS, which is simply an odd thing to say.

Of course, the ship-growth (character growth) is something we've seen in turn-based and even RTS games before - however the comfortable pace, focus on exploration, long game sessions, and even some of the faults (lack of story elements, time investment) and strength (depth, exploration, enjoyable visuals) remind me a bit of another "different" game - Guild Wars.

Here are a lot of screenshots with explanations, for those of you who are still on the fence about this game. What do you think from looking at these? For those who've played it, what impression did you take away? I certainly felt like playing bigger battles, with many sides and solar systems would be even more exiciting - in fact, I can see this game being addictive in the same way World of Warcraft is for some people...

Playing the Game

The enemy attacked my homeworld while my fleet was out exploring. My Capitol Ship and Light Frigates, arriving home to blow up the enemy (seen on the right).

A zoomed out view of the action, as I bulk up my fleet and finish off the last of the invading first wave.

The third planet in the solar system is conquered! As you can see by all the icons on the left, my fleet has become massive - capturing this ice world really wasn't much of a problem.

The pirate asteroid, about to be captured. Unfortunately I didn't get a screenshot of the massive pirate fleet - I had grave doubts about my abilities to win against them - it took me two tries, with the last one ending in an epic thirty minute battle around the pirate world.

A zoomed out view of the solar system after my conquest of the pirate world. The enemy worlds (red symbols) don't stand a chance at this point against my economic and military strength.

The next-to-last enemy world falls. They had some pretty neat architecture, like this torus-shaped manufacturing bay. You can see the last of their defenses (the blue, half-moon shaped cannon) about to be destroyed by my fleet.

Winning the Game

A game with just one solar system (one sun) with seven "planets" took me about three hours and thirty minutes. The last couple of minutes on the clock were just me wandering around. The game doesn't go to a "winning" screen automatically, which was a bit confusing. Advanced statistics are available anytime you quit out - here you can see planet ownership over time - my line is the green one.

Beating the Enemy

The vile enemy cult, relegated to nothingness.

The pirate commander, marked here as dead. They put up quite a fight, even when their fleet was destroyed, reinforcements from outside of the solar system flew in to put up one last stand for their home asteroid.

Capitol Ship Advancement

The Hammer of God - the second capitol ship I produced (after the first was destroyed). As you can see, it reached level seven, mostly by gaining massive experience in the epic battle against the pirate homeworld.

The Death Scythe, the third capitol ship I built. It gained some experience capturing the last two planets, and even at a low-level was a serious force to be reckoned with.

A picture of my Fleet summary towards the middle of the game. This is a rather small fleet compared to what I had at the end of the game, however even after three and a half hours of gameplay, I only managed to just reach the third size tier, out of eight - it would be quite time consuming to max out a military.

Achievements

I played as TEC, one of the three races available in the game.

The economics get a bit tricky, and ultimately play out quite a bit like a turn-based strategy game. Trade ships are just what they sound like, and function similarly to trade carts in Age of Empires II - except they trade with only your stations, and not the enemy.

Only certain ships are capable of seiging planets, at least at first, though technology upgrades give other ships some anti-planet abilities later on in the game.

Getting an achievement for this was pretty cool. The battle against the space pirates was the most epic one I've played in the game thus far. I've only played one game of Sins of a Solar Empire, but I'd like to face the pirates again.

Picking this up tomorrow, will come back and post impressions.

Looks like it's a blast though, I've been needing a game like this for quite some time.

Picking this up tomorrow, will come back and post impressions.

Looks like it's a blast though, I've been needing a game like this for quite some time.

elbow2k

I can't wait to play it online with friends... it's really something good for a long, relaxing gaming session.

I only heard about it recently and it does look like a very interesting game - I would pick it up but it is not released yet in Aus I may have to d/l or import it.

To the TC what would you give it out of /10?

Man... I want this game bad. Does anyone know if TotalGaming.net deliver worldwide? madrocketeer

You can purchase this game online from sinsofasolarempire.com - my friends in England downloaded it via the site. The cool thing is, regardless of how you get the game, once you register (or if you buy online) you have it forever - even if you lose the discs, cd-key, whatever.

-

And yes, it's really true, the developer's are online chatting with people, tweaking stuff, taking suggestions on things they could add, helping people get online working - the whole nine yards. You buy some games, and developer's won't even return your emails - if something goes wrong, the publisher says "talk to Microsoft" or "talk to Dell".

Here - you can speak 1-on-1 with the devs and put in requests, get tech support, the whole nine yards - it's absolutely awesome, and I cannot stress enough how much more comfortable that makes me with the game.

I only heard about it recently and it does look like a very interesting game - I would pick it up but it is not released yet in Aus I may have to d/l or import it.

To the TC what would you give it out of /10?

Fandangle

I don't want to rate it yet, I know that's such a cop-out, but because I have only played a 1-v-1 battle against easy AI, I don't think it would be fair for me to give it a score yet. Y'know when Jeff Gerstmann did the whole "thumbs up" thing for a game he liked?

I'll get down to the process of giving it a number score as soon as I've spent a fair-er amount of time with it, but my initial impression is this is a solid game, good, maybe even great? I sense that big game multiplayer is going to be the real winner, but I need to try that out before I can apply a numerical score.

I only heard about it recently and it does look like a very interesting game - I would pick it up but it is not released yet in Aus I may have to d/l or import it.

To the TC what would you give it out of /10?

Fandangle

right now 8.5/10

the game is fun and even more balanced with the latest patch applied. Normal AI is pretty decent and started to harass me quite often. I haven't yet played a multiplayer game but that's where the real fun will be.

I think once they release a couple more patches to tweak and balance some of the units in the game (note that the game itself is perfectly stable and well optimized) then i'll rate it a 9.3-9.5. Notice the TC's use of LRM frigate spamming, which seems to be a widely used tactic at the moment but i don't know whether those ships will require nerfing or not.

I just played another match and I won :D (against easy of course) heres a pic

Are the ships customizable, if so, to what degree?richsena

theres not much. the only custimization i've seen is that when a capital ship gains a level you can give him new abilities, "spells" if you want to call em that; such as a gauss cannon shot (lots of damage), flak shot (good against interceptors)

Are the ships customizable, if so, to what degree?richsena

No, unless you count the ablilities your capital ships gain when you level up

Wow, thanks for that awesome first impresions post :)

That game really came out of nowhere, I cannot wait to get my hands on it! Since I'm from Europe and want to own a retail copy I still have to be patient for a couple of days until that import arrives. But RTS meets Civ plus the positive user responses almost sounds too good to be true ;) .. just as if that game was made with my preferences in mind!

If you buy CE retail will you need the CD to play?Nikalai_88

No, none of Stardocks games require the CD to play after installing.

[QUOTE="Fandangle"]

I only heard about it recently and it does look like a very interesting game - I would pick it up but it is not released yet in Aus I may have to d/l or import it.

To the TC what would you give it out of /10?

spierdalaj666

right now 8.5/10

the game is fun and even more balanced with the latest patch applied. Normal AI is pretty decent and started to harass me quite often. I haven't yet played a multiplayer game but that's where the real fun will be.

I think once they release a couple more patches to tweak and balance some of the units in the game (note that the game itself is perfectly stable and well optimized) then i'll rate it a 9.3-9.5. Notice the TC's use of LRM frigate spamming, which seems to be a widely used tactic at the moment but i don't know whether those ships will require nerfing or not.

I tried to hone in on using the same upgrade paths with my frigates and capitol ships in the first game. To be honest, it simply seems like a good idea to have a big fleet of well, anything, simply to draw some of the fire, and prevent the capitol ship from getting ganked by a mob (which is what happened to my first one when I attacked the pirate homeworld).

I'm playing with the v1.01 update at the moment, so I can't comment on balancing changes it brings - the real destructive power came from my capitol ship though, I upgraded both to focus on punching through tougher enemy ships. I'd heard on the SOASE forums of waves of 20+ seige frigates being used to capture worlds "too quickly", but I didn't run into any problems - I'm used to games like Dawn of War, where a turret combined with an army helps, but a turret on its own is only good against lightly armored enemies - and that really seems to be the case here.

Are the ships customizable, if so, to what degree?richsena

Your normal ships are customized via the tech trees, much like in a typical RTS / TBS - unlocking research provides improvements to certain units. Capitol ships work like "heroes" or level-up-able characters in a TBS / RTS. As they fight they gain experience, and when they level up their stats improve. Also, with each level up you gain a point to spend on a special ability - take a look at the pics for my two capitol ships - you can see I've invested differently. The Hammer of God has Radiation Bomb lv. 3 and Incendiary Shells lv.3 - it's focus on ship-to-ship combat. The Death Scythe I gave more abilities for conquering planets (Raze Planet).

Damnit Sub you have finally convinced me. I will pick it up A.S.A.P. and we can play some online.Wasdie

Awesome, let me know when you get it - cake and vandal already picked it up, so we can play some big matches.

[QUOTE="richsena"]Are the ships customizable, if so, to what degree?Lonelynight

No, unless you count the ablilities your capital ships gain when you level up

Right, it's more about customizing your civilization path to suit your play st-yle, though what abilities you pick for your capitol ships can be important as well. Since you can queue research, queue structurs (and have them automatically placed), and in general give orders so that you economy takes care of itself for a few minutes, you have plenty of time to pick your level-up upgrades and such - you can even set combat behavior and such for the fleet, or manage them more closely if you so choose.

I'm impressed with the interface - of course many RTS games have gotten more helpful lately with ideas like auto-reinforce and queuing having emerged over the years - but this game heavily rewards strategy, planning, and exploration.

so basically every pc gamer on gamespot is going to end up buying this game?_Pedro_

so basically every pc gamer on gamespot is going to end up buying this game?_Pedro_

dont see why not :D its a fantastic game

[QUOTE="_Pedro_"]so basically every pc gamer on gamespot is going to end up buying this game?--Ryu--

Probably - the problem I ran into was that every PC gamer in my area was already trying to buy this game - it was sold out at GameStop day one - and Best Buy was down to four copies by the time I got there on day two - it seems to have quite a bit of momentum.

I can see it being a game I play on Friday afternoons, to wind down, or whatnot - it's pretty cool that way. It's one of those games you can play for a couple of hours on the weekend, or at a LAN party. Online lets you save games and come back to them later, which I like, since it means you can play a massive galaxy in manageable sessions.

The first time I played I got my *** kicked, but it was so fun.

Basically I played with 3 players and one of them was my ally. They asked me to do a bunch of missions and I didn't do any of them so eventually they turned on me. they sent a large fleet with a level 3 capital ship to one of my important resource expansions (this was after numerous invasions by pirates). I of course sent my fleet to take care of the invaders and although my level 4 capital ship received a lot of damage during the fight I prevailed. I decided to get my revenge and while I was off attacking one of my ex-allies's planets my original enemy attacked my homeworld with a huge fleet of siege ships and two level 3 capital ships. I sent my fleet there as fast as I could, but they had already destroyed my planet so I made the choice to make them pay for their sins against my people. I destroyed one of their capital ships even though my capital ship had taken a beating during my encounter with my ex-allies and the encounter with one of their planets. I then jumped back to an expansion and allowed my fleet to recover a bit.

This break was short lived however because the enemy sent another capital ship my way. My capital ship now being level 5 took care of their level 1 capital ship with ease though. The only problem was that it had taken so much damage from all the previous combat that its health bar was in red. I built a repair factory or w/e they are called asap and repaired it. They sent another capital ship(this was the survivor that aided in the destruction of my homeworld) my way and I caused it to retreat. I wasn't going to let them get away though. So I chased them till I destroyed them and it just so happened that they retreated to one of their planets. I decided to destroy this planet as revenge for their previous actions on my homeworld. My capital ship was now level 6 and it was very tough, but when they sent two more capital ships my way I didn't stand a chance so I just maintained my attack on their planet. Right after I destroyed their planet they destroyed my capital ship and I decided to give up. It was an epic first game.

I've had two single player matches.

I like the game. Its definitely an 8.0+ game for me. However, i find the game to be at an odd pacing. It needs to be either slower than the slowest setting or faster than the fastest. Theres not enough empire management to keep occupied all the time at its speed because of how slow it is. Yet, they could keep it the same empire management and up the speed quite a bit and still have a nicely paced RTS.

In either case, im fairly happy with the speed.

My only real issue with the game is the lack of variety between the three races. I was kinda hoping the ships had larger fundamental differences. All 3 races have the same amount of ships that all perform the same roles, with fairly small variations in stats. I think they could have done a bit better of a job. It kinda reminded me of Supreme Commander (the first one) with the 3 races being fairly similar. I think they did a pretty good job making fairly distinct active/passive ship abilities for each race, but i dont think its enough.

I see SoaSE could easily become a fantastic game that would last for years with a solid expansion.

I've had two single player matches.

I like the game. Its definitely an 8.0+ game for me. However, i find the game to be at an odd pacing. It needs to be either slower than the slowest setting or faster than the fastest. Theres not enough empire management to keep occupied all the time at its speed because of how slow it is. Yet, they could keep it the same empire management and up the speed quite a bit and still have a nicely paced RTS.

In either case, im fairly happy with the speed.

My only real issue with the game is the lack of variety between the three races. I was kinda hoping the ships had larger fundamental differences. All 3 races have the same amount of ships that all perform the same roles, with fairly small variations in stats. I think they could have done a bit better of a job. It kinda reminded me of Supreme Commander (the first one) with the 3 races being fairly similar.

I see SoaSE could easily become a fantastic game that would last for years with a solid expansion.

XaosII

I've had two single player matches.

I like the game. Its definitely an 8.0+ game for me. However, i find the game to be at an odd pacing. It needs to be either slower than the slowest setting or faster than the fastest. Theres not enough empire management to keep occupied all the time at its speed because of how slow it is. Yet, they could keep it the same empire management and up the speed quite a bit and still have a nicely paced RTS.

In either case, im fairly happy with the speed.

My only real issue with the game is the lack of variety between the three races. I was kinda hoping the ships had larger fundamental differences. All 3 races have the same amount of ships that all perform the same roles, with fairly small variations in stats. I think they could have done a bit better of a job. It kinda reminded me of Supreme Commander (the first one) with the 3 races being fairly similar. I think they did a pretty good job making fairly distinct active/passive ship abilities for each race, but i dont think its enough.

I see SoaSE could easily become a fantastic game that would last for years with a solid expansion.

XaosII

The three races all play in a similar way, and simply look visually different. The variation comes from the different tracks and civilization types you can build. There are some subtle varaitions, but I believe Stardock wanted to focus more on the various research branches - I imagine balancing that with three widely different civilizations would have been a bit of a nightmare - and of course specializing each "race" to a certain build would have removed the flexibility currently present.

The speed of the game and pacing is something I'll cover down the road when I write a review, but it's certainly interesting. For small games, you can put it on a faster pacing, because you'll never have to manage several massive fleets, or dozens of worlds - for larger games the normal pace is perfect. However, each pace has its downside - with the slower (normal) pace the beginning of the game can be a bit slow, since you don't have as much to do yet - however with the fastest pace, you would not want to play a massive game, as you'd be giving yourself too much to handle easily by late game.

[QUOTE="XaosII"]

I've had two single player matches.

I like the game. Its definitely an 8.0+ game for me. However, i find the game to be at an odd pacing. It needs to be either slower than the slowest setting or faster than the fastest. Theres not enough empire management to keep occupied all the time at its speed because of how slow it is. Yet, they could keep it the same empire management and up the speed quite a bit and still have a nicely paced RTS.

In either case, im fairly happy with the speed.

My only real issue with the game is the lack of variety between the three races. I was kinda hoping the ships had larger fundamental differences. All 3 races have the same amount of ships that all perform the same roles, with fairly small variations in stats. I think they could have done a bit better of a job. It kinda reminded me of Supreme Commander (the first one) with the 3 races being fairly similar.

I see SoaSE could easily become a fantastic game that would last for years with a solid expansion.

smokeydabear076

I believe diplomacy is something we see more when we have online multiplayer with a lot of human opponents.

[QUOTE="smokeydabear076"][QUOTE="XaosII"]

I've had two single player matches.

I like the game. Its definitely an 8.0+ game for me. However, i find the game to be at an odd pacing. It needs to be either slower than the slowest setting or faster than the fastest. Theres not enough empire management to keep occupied all the time at its speed because of how slow it is. Yet, they could keep it the same empire management and up the speed quite a bit and still have a nicely paced RTS.

In either case, im fairly happy with the speed.

My only real issue with the game is the lack of variety between the three races. I was kinda hoping the ships had larger fundamental differences. All 3 races have the same amount of ships that all perform the same roles, with fairly small variations in stats. I think they could have done a bit better of a job. It kinda reminded me of Supreme Commander (the first one) with the 3 races being fairly similar.

I see SoaSE could easily become a fantastic game that would last for years with a solid expansion.

subrosian

I believe diplomacy is something we see more when we have online multiplayer with a lot of human opponents.

How well does this game run? I'm thinking of picking it up but I don't know how well it would run on my nVidia 6150LE.VoodooGamer

Not sure about that video card and how it performs. But the game runs very, very, very well even on the highest on my 7900GT with AA.

Finally I don't feel that diplomacy is really possible in this game, at least not to the extent that it is in other games like galactic civilizations 2. I wish that I wouldn't be forced to combat right away and would have time to develop my fleet and research more technologies.smokeydabear076

For the next game try having locked teams so you wont have to deal with the diplomacy and you will automatically have an ally. That is a way you can slowly build up your fleet and research without being bossed around by the AI so you can gain favor in them. Allies are very useful when you order them to defend a planet that is being attacked and they accept and send a huge fleet over, very rewarding and a great site to watch. That is one of the things I love about sins, it is very customizable to your needs.

[QUOTE="smokeydabear076"] Finally I don't feel that diplomacy is really possible in this game, at least not to the extent that it is in other games like galactic civilizations 2. I wish that I wouldn't be forced to combat right away and would have time to develop my fleet and research more technologies.bignice12

For the next game try having locked teams so you wont have to deal with the diplomacy and you will automatically have an ally. That is a way you can slowly build up your fleet and research without being bossed around by the AI so you can gain favor in them. Allies are very useful when you order them to defend a planet that is being attacked and they accept and send a huge fleet over, very rewarding and a great site to watch. That is one of the things I love about sins, it is very customizable to your needs.

Just like other people have already said, the game is awesome. But the diplomacy is a little bit... No, actually, it's a LOT of bullcrap.

Ally: "Hey, I'm being attacked by a huge army (1 enemy ship). Could you please rush trough 20 enemy controlled sectors and 3 star systems so you could give me a hand?"

Me: ....

*10 minutes later*

Ally: "You son of a *****! Why didn't you help me?! I WILL FU***** KILL YOU!!!"

By the way, I didn't overreact on the Ally's response. That's pretty much what they say ingame. I could write a book full with these kind of examples. I wouldn't really call this game a 4x game or even say that it has 4x elements. Because diplomacy is extremely basic and to be honest, almost non-existant. And diplomacy is one of the big highlights in a 4x game.

The big problem is how fast they give you a mission, the big amount of reputation you lose if you fail the mission and the fact that it's a mission and not a request! I wouldn't mind if they would kindly ask you for help. I wouldn't mind if they wouldn't ask for help every 5 minutes. I wouldn't mind if I could kindly refuse. I wouldn't mind if they wouldn't hate me for refusing 2 missions (in about 10 minutes time). In my opinion it's next to impossible to be long-term allies with someone.

This game is almost impossible to get here in Canada. I called up at least six different EB Games and not a single one had a copy of it. To boot it cost 15 to 20 dollars to import it, which is just something I refuse to pay.

You figure instead of having an army of crappy Wii games, they would have more than 3 copies of a good game?

:(

Just like other people have already said, the game is awesome. But the diplomacy is a little bit... No, actually, it's a LOT of bullcrap.

Ally: "Hey, I'm being attacked by a huge army (1 enemy ship). Could you please rush trough 20 enemy controlled sectors and 3 star systems so you could give me a hand?"

Me: ....

*10 minutes later*

Ally: "You son of a *****! Why didn't you help me?! I WILL FU***** KILL YOU!!!"

By the way, I didn't overreact on the Ally's response. That's pretty much what they say ingame. I could write a book full with these kind of examples. I wouldn't really call this game a 4x game or even say that it has 4x elements. Because diplomacy is extremely basic and to be honest, almost non-existant. And diplomacy is one of the big highlights in a 4x game.

The big problem is how fast they give you a mission, the big amount of reputation you lose if you fail the mission and the fact that it's a mission and not a request! I wouldn't mind if they would kindly ask you for help. I wouldn't mind if they wouldn't ask for help every 5 minutes. I wouldn't mind if I could kindly refuse. I wouldn't mind if they wouldn't hate me for refusing 2 missions (in about 10 minutes time). In my opinion it's next to impossible to be long-term allies with someone.

BlackAlpha666

You should take your concern over to the Sins of a Solar Empire site - the devs are on the forum, and are basically taking suggestions on how to improve the game.

I agree that I would love to kindly refuse certain missions without penalty. I'm not sure if you have it but they increased the time you have to complete the missions in the most recent patch 1.02. This game definitely has 4x elements, it is basically a real time 4x game, it doesn't have an in depth diplomacy system like in other 4 games but knowing stardock they will continue to improve it over time. Like I told smokey, I would highly suggest doing locked teams if you find the diplomacy to be frustrating. bignice12

v1.02 is already out? Wow that's fast.

This game is almost impossible to get here in Canada. I called up at least six different EB Games and not a single one had a copy of it. To boot it cost 15 to 20 dollars to import it, which is just something I refuse to pay.

You figure instead of having an army of crappy Wii games, they would have more than 3 copies of a good game?

:(

elbow2k

I've been to 8 different stores now in Vancouver, nothing. I regret not asking my friend to grab me a copy. Been leeching off of his right now, but I can't go online with it or grab the patches. >_>

[QUOTE="elbow2k"]

This game is almost impossible to get here in Canada. I called up at least six different EB Games and not a single one had a copy of it. To boot it cost 15 to 20 dollars to import it, which is just something I refuse to pay.

You figure instead of having an army of crappy Wii games, they would have more than 3 copies of a good game?

:(

Shadow-Eagle

I've been to 8 different stores now in Vancouver, nothing. I regret not asking my friend to grab me a copy. Been leeching off of his right now, but I can't go online with it or grab the patches. >_>

Tell me about it! I should have preordered this game when I had the chance to, now I don't even know what I'm gonna do. I live in Toronto, you would figure they would have something here, but they don't. I envy the States, they get good games at all their locations, from BestBuy to WallMart, while we gotta make do with just EB Games.

:(