Sins of a Solar Empire

[Chips]

Anyone heard anything about this game?

http://www.sinsofasolarempire.com/

Supposed to be a preview of it tonight at 8pm EST on G4TV

[Yirr]

Ya, I've been waiting for this game for awhile. I missed out on the pre-order to get in the beta test promotion, but there doesnt seem to be many negative posts on their forums the last I checked. Half 4x space empire and half space RTS sounds like a dream come true. I am forcing myself to lower my expectations of it. Gonna have to check out that preview.

[Faille]

Is this due out this week?

[Kez]

Originally Posted by Faille

Is this due out this week?

Tomorrow, in stores.

[CyrusReij]

I pre-ordered and have thus been in the beta for like 3/5 of a year, it can be funnish, sorta. I guess I was hoping for a way to relive Homeworld, while this game is rather epic in scope the actual ship combat part is lacking. In short there is no Z-axis movement, while ships will go up/down if there is another ship in that particular x,y coordinate you can't actually order them to move up or down. There aren't any moving pieces on any of the ships, no turrets that aim on the big cap ships, just sparklies that fly out of static models, which also bothered me. While the sense of scale is kind of there, Cap ships ARE bigger than fighters, but you can't actually inidividually command fighters, it still seems a little off. The graphics are pretty, but I still think other space games had nicer looking ships. *HW 2 and Nexus come to mind*

The whole 4x RTS combo part is very cool though, you have research for new ships, and you hop around to different systems, colonizing and base building and pirate killing and such. Games can take a VERY long time to complete on larger maps, and alliances and such are very fun in these situations.

So I guess my big gripe with this game is the ships aren't flashy enough for me, which is understandable due to the scope of games being fucking huge divided amongst dozens of star systems, you can't have top of the line ship graphics/animations. Unfortunately for me this is what I crave in a space game, Freespace 2, Eve, and Homeworld 2 have spoiled space ship combat for me since they are all so fucking good looking for their time periods and this game falls short.

All in all, its definately worth a try for the unique game system, but if you require top of the line space ship graphics like me, beware the game isn't pretty enough :\

[Blide]

Noticed there are already Star Wars and Star Trek ship reskins.

This games went completely under my radar but it looks interesting, will probably think about getting it after a demo comes out in like a month. Though by that time Brawl and DoW: Soulstorm will likely be out...

[Vorph]

Sad times when even Stardock feels the need to gay up their strategy games with real-time instead of turn-based. I'll try it anyway since it's Stardock, but I have zero hope for it being a good game.

[Kobalt]

Originally Posted by Vorph

Sad times when even Stardock feels the need to gay up their strategy games with real-time instead of turn-based. I'll try it anyway since it's Stardock, but I have zero hope for it being a good game.

Why would they come out with another turn based game when the 2nd expansion to galciv 2 isn't even out yet.

[stehle]

I was playing through beta on this game and I downloaded the full game last night to start playing. I didn't get an opportunity to play through a full game, but the first thing I noticed was the revamped GUI. It looks a hell of a lot nicer and is much more intuitive.

I tried out the new race, the Advent, because I know nothing about them and their ships look very cool. Their special ship abilities all seem to center around psionic powers. My impression is that the psionic powers are very similar to the other races with a different name (I can't confirm that statement yet).

This game (especially late game) is a combination of TA / Supreme Commander with the tech tree system of civilization. I'll write a better description once I get some more time under my belt tonight. So far I really like it--especially with the new changes they implemented.

/edit: VE3D has some nice screenshots up: VE3D Image for Sins of a Solar Empire (PC) - Voodoo Extreme

[Qhue]

Just what keeps us so alive?
Just what make us realize...Our Home is our World our Life.

[darkblue]

Didn't play the beta, bought the game last night...

I'm in love.

[Jait]

Planning on checking this out. Stardock makes some quality products, and I love their philosophy on copy-protection. Though admittedly, I tend to lose interest after a week or so of playing their games.

Originally Posted by Kobalt

Why would they come out with another turn based game when the 2nd expansion to galciv 2 isn't even out yet.

Because they have more than one team? Consolidating to finish a product isn't good for almost any business.

edit: On further review
Publisher:
Stardock
Developer:
Ironclad Games

[CyrusReij]

OK so I haven't played the beta in the last few months so my earlier report seems overly scathing, the game is MUCH fucking improved. A++ even

[Heavens_Myst]

Is there a way to turn off the pirate attacks or make them go for the AI too?

[Kez]

Originally Posted by Heavens_Myst

Is there a way to turn off the pirate attacks or make them go for the AI too?

Bribe them to go for someone else, or make a custom map without them. Those are two ways that I recall off the top of my head from visiting the Sins forums. I think there are also some random maps that dont have pirates on them as well.

Here's a post from Blair Fraser, one of the heads of Ironclad, on how they see Pirates in SOASE.

Pirates Discussion

Blair Fraser
February 5, 2008 18:55:43
Reply #29

Q: What other real time strategy game features roaming bands of units that play an enormous role in determining development speed for my base? Warcraft? No. Starcraft? No. Europa Universalis? No. There's nothing comparable to Pirates in any RTS I've ever played. The entire idea is so foreign to me, it never even occured to me that something like this would be in a RTS or a serious strategy game of any kind.

A: I guess the problem is that we and many others interpret this statement as a complement - Sins is not your standard RTS and we welcome change, innovation and new ideas. There are too many standard RTS's on the market and if I was forced to make another one I would quit my job. I'm not the only one who feels this way either: the pirate mechanic has been mentionned by many as one of the most fun and innovative systems in Sins and in games in general. To give it credit though, its actually a system inspired by a famous and popular strategy game called Settlers of Catan : Cities and Knights.

Personally, I think its one of the best parts of the game - I just love sniping the bounty on someone at the last second - its exhilirating and suspenseful. I love bidding wars. I love being able to play an economic game but being able to hire the pirates to handle my dirty work. I love that I can anonymously backstab my *allies* by sending pirates at them. I love being able to tie up another player on one front with the pirates so I can focus on another player. I love stealing the pirates booty. I love timing the pirate attack with my own. I love that I can survive after my fleet has been decimated by raiding trade ships to fund a mercenary pirate army. I love a system that allows me to collaborate with enemies to take out a strong player without having to ally. I love that pirates keep things interesting while human players build up. I love farming them for experience for my low level capitalships. I could probably go for awhile but you get the idea.

Regardless, we recognize it isn't for everyone so here is what we are going to do. We'll build some new maps without pirates and include them as soon as possible. Anything more drastic (such as turning them off completely) would take a fair bit more work and couldn't be done quickly. Besides, we'd also like to take some time to evaluate possible side effects of their removal that we haven't considered yet.

Thanks for bringing up your concerns,
-Blair

For those interested here are the maps without pirates:

Balance Of Power
Derelict
Gateway
Voruk's Labyrinth