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Sins of a Solar Empire
- Thread starter Fenris
- Start date
WhatGravitas
Explorer
I have it... and it's sort of great and sort of disappointing.
It's a great game, fun to play, but the problem is: All three races are play pretty similarly, which reduces the replay value a bit. The lack of a campaign or something similar also hurts, as the only variety is changing the maps.
If you can live with that, it's a great sandbox game and on a huge map, you can play for hours in a very Civ/MoO2 style and it's fun.
Personally, I still play it, but not very often - Civ IV has a higher replay value with all the mods out there.
They're releasing mini-expansions for it you can buy via download and next year, Stardock will probably release a bigger expansion collecting these online mini-expansions together with some sort of campaign (at least that's rumoured). That could increase the replay value of the game immensely.
Cheers, LT.
It's a great game, fun to play, but the problem is: All three races are play pretty similarly, which reduces the replay value a bit. The lack of a campaign or something similar also hurts, as the only variety is changing the maps.
If you can live with that, it's a great sandbox game and on a huge map, you can play for hours in a very Civ/MoO2 style and it's fun.
Personally, I still play it, but not very often - Civ IV has a higher replay value with all the mods out there.
They're releasing mini-expansions for it you can buy via download and next year, Stardock will probably release a bigger expansion collecting these online mini-expansions together with some sort of campaign (at least that's rumoured). That could increase the replay value of the game immensely.
Cheers, LT.
Game Genre Warning - This isn't really a 4X game.
Sins of a Solar Empire is a real time strategy game, plain and simple. The mechanics of its battlefield borrow from the 4X mold, but it is in almost all other ways a real time strategy game.
If you come at this from a desire to play a MOO2 or Galactic Civilizations, you will be disappointed. If you come at this from a desire to play Supreme Commander or Starcraft or similar, you may like it. It is not a bad game. It is just not the game that buzz suggests it might be.
There is very little customization to be done. All sides are predetermined. All ships are predetermined. You have some latitude as far as what research to pursue, but the tech tree is very RTS (ie - "This upgrade increases the damage of all your frigates 10%" and so on). Economy is RTS, and consists mostly of harvesting resources from asteroids. There is a limited amount of planetary improvement that can be done...the primary result of which makes each planet a better "base" from which to launch attacks or gather resources.
I haven't yet played a game where diplomacy was important, but that doesn't mean it can't be. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't comment on it.
Anyway...my feelings about Sins are mixed. On the one hand, I recognize it's a solid game on its own terms. On the other, I can't help but feel I was sold a bill of goods about what it was going to be, and that lingering disappointment has tainted it for me.
Just be aware of what it is before you decide to buy.
Sins of a Solar Empire is a real time strategy game, plain and simple. The mechanics of its battlefield borrow from the 4X mold, but it is in almost all other ways a real time strategy game.
If you come at this from a desire to play a MOO2 or Galactic Civilizations, you will be disappointed. If you come at this from a desire to play Supreme Commander or Starcraft or similar, you may like it. It is not a bad game. It is just not the game that buzz suggests it might be.
There is very little customization to be done. All sides are predetermined. All ships are predetermined. You have some latitude as far as what research to pursue, but the tech tree is very RTS (ie - "This upgrade increases the damage of all your frigates 10%" and so on). Economy is RTS, and consists mostly of harvesting resources from asteroids. There is a limited amount of planetary improvement that can be done...the primary result of which makes each planet a better "base" from which to launch attacks or gather resources.
I haven't yet played a game where diplomacy was important, but that doesn't mean it can't be. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't comment on it.
Anyway...my feelings about Sins are mixed. On the one hand, I recognize it's a solid game on its own terms. On the other, I can't help but feel I was sold a bill of goods about what it was going to be, and that lingering disappointment has tainted it for me.
Just be aware of what it is before you decide to buy.
Simplicity
Explorer
My feelings on Sins of a Solar Empire are also mixed. The game is good. When I first started playing it, my impression was: "Wow. This is really awesome." As time went on, I started to realize that the races are very similar, and the research is not as interesting as it should be for a sci-fi game.
The expansion pack may improve gameplay some though. I haven't tried it.
I do think it might be a really interesting game to play multiplayer... The pirates concept was a good one.
The expansion pack may improve gameplay some though. I haven't tried it.
I do think it might be a really interesting game to play multiplayer... The pirates concept was a good one.
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