Have you bought this game yet? If not read my review; its very detailed and will give you an idea of what to expect....
The Cons: You will lose sleep…..a lot of it, longer learning curve, mission/diplomacy sys isn't that great, no random events or planet interactions.
Sins of a solar empire or "sins" is the first game that successfully blends rts with 4x Gameplay. In the genre of space empires and conquering the galaxy, you usually have to include a turn button so the scale and pace of the game isn't overwhelming. However Ironcald and Stardock have decided to throw the turn button out the window and create a game on a galactic scale while keeping the real time pace easy so you can manage everything.
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Cons
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I going to start with the cons because this game is fantastic and I want to get this section over with. However it does have a few minor shortcomings that would have made this game truly great.
Diplomacy/missions:
Enemy factions or allies will periodically give you missions to complete to improve your standing with them; This is in the form of a %. These missions are generic and there is almost no variety at all, the first mission a faction assigns you is almost always give X amount of resources as a gift to them. That great if you want to please a nearby faction to become allies, but in early game its robbery. If you don't complete any mission they give you within the time limit you lose standing with them…Basically it pisses them off and you have to constantly complete their missions, or any treaties like an alliance or trade rights will get revoked if your standing drops too low. Thankfully the penalty for failing a mission is half of what you would gain in standing had you completed the mission. Other missions include attack either civilian or military targets (ships or structures) that belong to a certain faction, which again is a double edged sword because if your playing on a big map and your enemy is on the other side of the solar sys it can take a while just to find the enemy planet with the correct mission structures or ships; Let alone get their and destroy it in time before the mission timer runs out. Locking teams at the beginning setup before the game starts eliminates missions, which can be good if you want a FFA match and don't want your enemies ganging up on you. On a positive side note you can ping a planet or object and your allies will respond either to defend or attack depending on the thing you pinged, you can consider this missions that "you" send out.
Events/planetary interactions:
Although just a minor complaint, I believe this game would have benefited from events because it would immerse you deeper into the game. I don't mind that this game is a straight up rts with some 4X aspects, but you never get to know or even have to option to know anything about your planets society etc. In real life events would happen, disasters for instance. The planets statistic just show the necessary info, like planet HP, population, tactical and logistic structure capacity, and minor random bonuses you may have discovered.
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Good
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Space Battles and AI
Alright the part you've been waiting for. The space battles are amazing! So far I haven't seen such space battles in any game like this. When big battles consisting of more than 100+ ships occur, your gonna want to zoom in and watch this movie unfold. Missiles fly and find their targets, lasers and projectiles are traded back and forth, while both opposing fleets close ranks and mesh together in one big mess, but it's not something to worry about. You don't even really have to control the battle and every action, the AI takes care of almost everything, you only need to worry about the big decisions. Most abilities are set to auto cast, and the AI knows when to use them and who to use them on. Yes generally ships in combat sit still unless pursuing a retreating enemy, but that's not a con at all. These battles can last for minutes; the only problem so far is the AI often retreats when confronted by a larger more superior force, even if the friendly/enemy ship ratio isn't that big. But they do stand their ground when they need to. And after the battle debris will remain for a short while from all the destroyed ships.
*****The rest of the review will be very detailed, almost going over every aspect of the game. I'll try not to make this dry and boring……
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Story
The story doesn't extend beyond the opening cinematic and what's in the manual, and both of these sources tell almost the same thing. There's isn't a single player campaign, so you won't see a cinematic ending after winning a scenario/skirmish. There's the (TEC) Trader Emergency Coalition, the Advent, and the Vasari Empire.
TEC
It started with the "Trade Order", a group of human colonies that banned together for economic stability. Early on emissary's came upon a world searching for more trading partners, what they discovered was a group of humans who's practices of science advancement and social behavior was unacceptable. The Trade Order basically said get the hell out you freaks! And so the entire population was forced to leave into uncharted space. The Trade Order lived in relative peace, war was something you read in history books, and any present day disputes were settled in courts.
Then the Vasari Empire showed up and swiftly obliterated any human world they found, the Trade Order could do nothing to stop them. That's why the Trade Order created the TEC, to combat this threat and beat them back and maintain the defensive line. They actually started to win after building war ships and eventually became a strong military presence in the galaxy. Until their ancient enemy returned and attacked the rear, undefended colonies, they now they call themselves the Advent.
Advent
Their history begins even before the creation of the Trade Order. They started out as different groups of humans seeking spiritual freedom, All members of the Advent are know collectively as "The Unity" because their advancements in technology include neural augmentations etc. allowing any Advent to communicate or share feelings threw their minds. After they were forced into exile, they began to focus even more on their practices for the next 1,000 years, while anticipating the day they would return to enact revenge on the Trade Order. With their resources almost exhausted they decided now was the perfect time to returned with their frightening weapons and technology far beyond anything the Trade Order could have imagined, so they could remove them and reclaim what was lost.
Vasari
They once ruled hundreds of other races and control much of the galactic core. Most aliens they encountered were primitive and peacefully brought into the fold, while the more advanced species were harshly enslaved. They prefer to rule each planet from orbital space cities in case of rebellion. 10,000 years ago a Vasari world fell silent, so the dark fleet was sent in anticipating a simple rebellion, but never returned or reported back. More worlds fell silent including the Vasari home world, it was then that the Vasari pulled back its fleets to mass together an attack this mysterious foe. A single ship reappeared at an outer colony in Vasari space; the colony boarded the ship and found everyone completely mad with fear. After that they decided "screw this! Were getting out of here while we still can." And so the remaining Vasari fleet jumped away from Vasari space….never to see it again. They would only stopped to resupply and leaving warning beacons like a trail of breadcrumbs. But no matter how far they travel, those warning beacons fall silent, their enemy hot on their trail.
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Scenarios
When ever you start a game whether it's single or multiplayer, you can choose from small, medium, large, and finally huge maps. These maps consist of planetoids that vary in number from 15 to over a hundred depending on the size of the map, The game ships with over 25 pre made maps, but you can create your own custom ones or you can select the random map (small, medium, large, huge) and it will randomize everything so it never appears the same way over and over.
You can even adjust the speed the game plays at from slow, normal, and fast. So everyone can enjoy this game, from gamers who like quick 30 minute matches to those of you who want that epic 10-20 hr galactic conquest!
Example of an early game: You start out each game with 1 Terran planet, your home world. You have 2 constructor ships and 1 frigate factory capable of producing both frigates and cruisers. You should start out by building up available mines around the planet, and then build a capital ship factory to produce your 1st FREE cap ship; the rest will cost you a lot of resources. You should then start by building scout ships and explore the galaxy, then build up attacking ships and expand using a colonizing ship that captures planetoids for you, and start researching economic tech.
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Resources, Black Market and Pirate bounty sys
There are only 3 resources: Metal, Crystal, and Credits. Actual planets and some asteroids will generate credits through taxes, the higher the pop cap the more money you receive per sec. Crystal and metal are on asteroids orbiting planetoids which again vary in # and type depending on location. Only planets and asteroids can be captured. Some planetoids like space junk and gas giants are uncapturable but may contain asteroids that can be captured by the colony ship (TEC, and Advent) or for the Vasari its scout ship. These generally give a crap load more resources per sec.
Black Market: no you don't have to travel to a location or build a building to use this, its available from the start, just click on the skull tab and your there. It has 2 sections, 1 is the market, and the other is the pirate bounty sys. In the market you can sell or buy crystal and metal for credits, the more you buy at once the higher the price (supply and demand). You can also offer resources for free into the market and set the price for it undercutting your enemies, creating havoc with your enemies by jacking up the price they pay.
Pirates: this is the menu that shows you several things.
1st you can see the list of every faction including yourself at the top, next to each faction in a bounty button that you use to place bounties on another players head. Bounties are placed in 250 credit increments every time you up the bounty, with no refunds if you change your mind. After placing the bounty you can see how much bounty a player has against them, and who ever has the highest amount against them will be the pirates target for their next attack. The higher the bounty the larger the attacking pirate fleet will be. If no one has any bounty on them, the pirates auto pick someone to attack at random. You will be notified just before the pirate raid is launched, so you can participate in the biding war, which reminds me of hot potato….lol, because it's a race to keep your bounty less than someone else, so they get screwed while you can focus on other things.
Pirate bases: there can be multiple bases in a multiple star map; with no more than 1 per star sys. And these bases are suicide locations for the early game, so don't jump in an attack fleet…. until your ready. They are loaded from the start with over 15-20 defensive gun emplacements and a defensive fleet. Why attack you ask? Because you can destroy the pirates; capture their bases. Once all pirate bases are destroyed, the pirates are dead for the rest of that game. No more bounty worries!!! And pirate bases provide a nice tax income.
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Planets
Actual planets vary by type:
Terran-lush green worlds that can sustain large pop cap = more money.
Desert-have a higher capacity for orbital logistic structures, like frigate factories; so these can be heavy ship yards.
Volcanic-most notable because they only have metal asteroids in orbit.
Ice- the opposite of volcanic; they have an abundance of crystal asteroids.
Planets need to be upgraded before they generate tax income, in left un-upgraded you actually lose money per sec. Most planets supply a decent amount of tactical and logistic structures slots once fully upgraded.
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Logistic and Tactical Structures
Logistic: these structures are of non military variety like ship factories, resource mines, trade stations, refineries, etc.
Tactical: Military structures both offensive and defensive. Including gun emplacements, fighter bomber hangars, the faction's super weapon, and other specialized military structures depending on the faction.
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Culture
Each faction have a structure that can be built to increase their cultural influence across phase lanes and into enemy territory, reducing their planets loyalty and if not countered will cause that planet to revolt and become neutral. Culture can also prevent the enemy from colonizing a planet you just lost in a siege until the culture reseeds. Culture also provide military bonuses for your fleet when stationed in your own culture, thus helping you to defend home turf better.
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Superweapons
Each faction has one superweapon that takes a lot of research before it can even be built. It takes up about 18 tactical slots and can cost more than 2 capital ships. Each of the faction's superweapons is different. The TEC have the Novalith cannon, which fires a powerful nuclear warhead at enemy planets, causing massive damage no matter how far the range. The Advent have the Deliverance Engine, which target any planet and increases your cultural influence there as well as increasing your combat effectiveness in the sys for a short period of time. The Vasari have the Kostura Cannon, after in hits a planet it will spread a small bit of damage to every structure and ship in orbit and disable them from doing anything for a short period of time… friend or foe.
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Ships, Anti matter, Fleet Logistics
All factions have nearly identical ship roles with some exceptions. The differences per faction are cost, stats, and of course cosmetic appearance. Certain advanced frigates and all cruisers are required to be researched before they can be buildable. Capital ships don't require research to be unlocked. And you can also name any ship.
Frigates and cruisers: frigates are your basic fighting ships like light frigates, scouts, colonizing ships, flak, long range missile ships, etc. While cruisers are more specialized in their roles such as carriers that can carry either a single squadron of fighters or bombers, or supporting ships like repair ships, or advanced targeting ships for increased accuracy bonuses, and the last cruiser is your most powerful combat ship below the cap ship class, but it's the most expensive and takes up more fleet logistics.
Capital ships: Cost a lot of all 3 resources, not to mention 50 fleet logistics. They start out at lvl 1, and you can select its starting ability like a hero character in other games. Some abilities are passive while others are used and require cool downs between uses You can buy the lvl 2, 3, and after research….. lvl 4 upgrade, or if you cant afford it you can lvl up your ships through combat experience. Pirates and neutral planet rebels are good for this. Lvl's 5-10 are gained only through combat experience. So try not to lose your lvl 8 cap ship, or all that money and or hard work will go to waste.
*also cap ships require 1 crew pt each as well as the 50 Fleet Logistics, which I'll explain later in the research section.
Anti matter: it's a regenerating power supply required for abilities on any ship, from frigates to cap ships, like other games "mana" etc. Phase jumping will take a certain amount of antimatter away, but advanced research in mid-late game reduce this effect.
Fleet Logistics: think of it as your fleet pop cap. Non cap ships can take up to 2-10. You can increase your total Fleet Logistics by buying the upgrades in…. yep you guessed it the Fleet Logistic menu in the research tab. But as you up your fleet cap you gain upkeep costs. Regardless if you use all the fleet cap or leave it available….. the upkeep costs remain the same. So don't upgrade till you need it, because the upkeep cost basically reduces the amount of resource come in, and once you max out your Fleet Logistics upgrades for 2000 fleet cap you will have a upkeep of 25%, meaning 25% of your total resources never actually come in, doing this to early can stall your economy.
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Research
In the research tab you have many menus: Military, Civilian, Fleet Logistics, and Artifacts.
In the military and civilian menus you have 3 sub section trees of research, all together there's at least over a 200 things of research over all 3 factions.
Military focuses on upgrading offensive and defensive aspects of your ships, as well as ships research to build advanced ships like cruisers.
Civilian trees focus on economics, construction, diplomacy upgrades, jump upgrades, etc.
Fleet Logistics has 2 trees of upgrades, 1 for Fleet cap, and 1 for capital ship crew pts. This menu also shows you the current upkeep cost, and the next lvl of upkeep cost.
Artifacts: By researching the explore planet upgrade you might get lucky and find 1 of 12 different artifacts. The bonuses once discovered are immediate and the effect range is not limited, meaning the bonus effects are on a galactic scale.
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Phase Jumping
All planets have a gravity well and beyond that are lines that connect to other planets called phase lanes, these are the highways you must travel on to get to other planets. Which creates chock points, so you don't have to spread your forces thin fearing an attack on your back colonies. The enemy can attack your back colonies, but they have to travel the spider web of phase lanes to get there, all the while your defenses pound them at each stop they make. In order for a ship to jump along a phase lane it must travel outside the gravity well first.
Once researched you can travel from star to star, with each star containing a lot of planets. You can jump from your star to any other star on the map, making them key choke points. Wormholes kind of screw this up because they offer an alternative doorway between stars. But these highways are limited, meaning 2 wormholes are connected. So you cant pick the wormhole to exit out of like you can with stars, so secure both ends of the wormhole and …… no worries.
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Sys Requirements
Sins can run on a wide variety of machines, so you don't have to spend 300 bucks to upgrade your sys in order to play. I get high settings with my average sys specs, and its only slightly lags when theirs a huge battle going on.
My specs:
P4 3.0 ghz processing spd
3 gigs ram
Nvidia 6800 (2 full generations behind…)
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Overall
This is the best space rts I've ever played… if you have ever wanted to jump into this genre of rts but was turned away because previous game either did a crappy job or had a turn sys and automated battles… then this game is for you. I highly recommend this title, thanks for reading.