Sins of a Solar Empire Preview

[Slaughter]

With Sins of a Solar Empire (http://www.sinsofasolarempire.com/) just having gone gold (http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/index.aspx?AID=174092), we thought it would be a good time to reveal StrategyCore's look (http://www.strategycore.co.uk/pg/sinspreview) at the recent beta build. Our own Space Voyager took Sins for a spin and wrote up his impressions of the self-proclaimed first RT4X.
Battlefields, meaning gravity wells, while being 3D and ships even being able to move in 3D, are completely flat for all practical purposes. Ships don't manoeuvre in 3D (by themselves) and frankly – in most cases there is no advantage in doing so either. Attacking from the rear, flanking, or any tactical manoeuvre you can think of for that matter, has no point in Sins. It makes no difference from which direction the attack comes.
Read the full preview (http://www.strategycore.co.uk/pg/sinspreview) and then try the game yourself starting February 4th.

http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_01_2008/post-4340-1201677720_thumb.jpg (http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=1712) http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_01_2008/post-4340-1201677732_thumb.jpg (http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=1713) http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_01_2008/post-4340-1201677740_thumb.jpg (http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=1714)

[joruussuun]

Gratz, you Slaughterd the website...

[Ghostbear]

Sweet Jebus, I want to play this now.

[Voodoo]

The most recent beta build is Beta4 which is about 60% representative of the game you'll see on 2/4.

[Emabulator]

I'm a Stardock.com member, which is like a poor man's Steam. (I'm a huge fan of their 4x masterpiece, Galactic Civ. II).

I have been playing a lot of the Sins beta. I'll reserve judgment until I can play the full game, but I have enjoyed the beta. The scope and scale is huge, but it's easily managed. The graphics are good. It runs smooth with all the options cranked and 4xAA. The only thing I did not like is the multiplayer lobby, which they have been working on.

[Telefrog]

Article = terrible writing.

An interesting detail for all players of games who thought they have seen it all; Sins belongs to the RT4X class of games. Never heard of this particular class? Not surprising – it didn't exist before Sins. Does this mean Sins is completely different from all the rest of space games? Well, not really. It means that Ironclad was the first to use this new conglomerate name of Real Time and 4X – RT4X. If nothing else, Master of Orion 3 went there looong ago, with devastating results. I have to admit that the mix of real time and 4X was definitely one of the few good things the game had, so this is not a recipe for disaster at all.

Yes, because Star Wars: Empires At War didn't do it also... :rolleyes:

That being said, I love Stardock and will definitely get this if the reviews manage to hold up.

[Karamazov]

Yes, because Star Wars: Empires At War didn't do it also... :rolleyes:


That wasn't a 4X game, was it?

[Ghostbear]

That wasn't a 4X game, was it?

it was 4x...ish

[scythe]

Been looking forward to this one for a long time... i'm excited :)

[Wyrm]

I've been watching this one for a bit now, and I'm quite excited. The story even sounds pretty sweet.

But Telefrog hit the nail on the head. That article is poorly written.

[Sarconix]

The story even sounds pretty sweet.

There is a back story, but keep in mind that there is no built-in campaign. All gameplay, both for single-player and MP, is in custom scenarios. This is similar to the original Galactic Civilizations.

[TragicComic]

I'm dying for this game to come out. I've always been a 4x fan. So much so that I helped found a PBM (Play-By-Mail, yes, that's mail, not e-mail) company in the early 90's whose product was a multiplayer (45 players) 4x game based on the Traveller RPG license. The best part about PBM games were that a single game could take up to two years to complete (and the cost was insane, about 30 bucks a month), so if you were in the end game, you had two years of planning and scheming to try to make the win. Anyway, long story-short, waiting for Sins got me looking at other 4x games and I came across SpaceCiv.com, it's a multiplayer 4x civ type game that's kind of fun, I recommend that you check it out if you are into this kind of thing.

Oh, and did I mention it's in beta and it's FREE! :D

[Rogue_hunter]

Sweet Jebus, I want to play this now.

agreed.

and Empire at War's space combat was the only real draw, but it was still 2D

[KingGorilla]

Article = terrible writing.

An interesting detail for all players of games who thought they have seen it all; Sins belongs to the RT4X class of games. Never heard of this particular class? Not surprising – it didn't exist before Sins. Does this mean Sins is completely different from all the rest of space games? Well, not really. It means that Ironclad was the first to use this new conglomerate name of Real Time and 4X – RT4X. If nothing else, Master of Orion 3 went there looong ago, with devastating results. I have to admit that the mix of real time and 4X was definitely one of the few good things the game had, so this is not a recipe for disaster at all.

Yes, because Star Wars: Empires At War didn't do it also... :rolleyes:

That being said, I love Stardock and will definitely get this if the reviews manage to hold up.
Let's play spot the reprinted press release.

[Thumper]

Hmm, I was pretty excited about this game until I read this. I know there's a couple people here who were in the beta so maybe you can clear things up for me. The way I read this it's looking like more of an Age of Empires in space kind of game than a true 4X game. How much focus is on combat relative to the other aspects. Is it possible to "win" by focusing on eXploitation rather than just eXtermination? I'm not a huge fan of traditional RTSs (read: I suck at them) and the apparent focus on combat and it's relatively simple mechanics makes it seem like that's what I'll be getting.

I guess what I was looking for was a kind of a Space: Total War (not quite actually, Civilization in space maybe?). It appears that I was mistaken. I've heard good things about X3 though... maybe I'll have to find that.

[Voodoo]

Hmm, I was pretty excited about this game until I read this. I know there's a couple people here who were in the beta so maybe you can clear things up for me. The way I read this it's looking like more of an Age of Empires in space kind of game than a true 4X game. How much focus is on combat relative to the other aspects. Is it possible to "win" by focusing on eXploitation rather than just eXtermination? I'm not a huge fan of traditional RTSs (read: I suck at them) and the apparent focus on combat and it's relatively simple mechanics makes it seem like that's what I'll be getting.

I guess what I was looking for was a kind of a Space: Total War (not quite actually, Civilization in space maybe?). It appears that I was mistaken. I've heard good things about X3 though... maybe I'll have to find that.

It is hard to say really. The latest beta is Beta4 and doesn't have the complete view of the game. I was playing last night though against 3 AI and was able to eventually ally with 2 of them against the last. The game can also overwhelm you extremely fast. At one point I had large battles going on in 3 different gravity wells and kept having to zoom out and then in the see what was going on all the while taking care of research (large research tree) and building the necessary platforms and doing upgrades to conquered planets... All in real time.

If there were any game I'd compare it to I would say it is as if Homeworld and Conquest - Frontier Wars had a child and named her Sin.

Check this out : http://pc.ign.com/articles/848/848665p1.html

Looks like the final game got some significant improvements over what I've been playing (Beta4). :)!

[reimomo]

so, uh, still no multiplayer?

=fail.

[BleedTheFreak]

so, uh, still no multiplayer?

=fail.

LMAO, what the hell? There is most certainly multi-player. Crimany, do a little research.

EDIT: Here, uh, watch this movie.
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/gamespace/download_alt.php?pid=935993&sid=6185226&id=6185226

[MacD]

Damn...I hate space games which ignore the third dimension. Even Homeworld 2 didn't do it very well, though...I really don't understand why they used such 2d maps in a space rts.

Still, it was pretty fun when my opponents crapped their pants as my main armada fell onto their base from high out of the eliptical after they thought they'd won and crushed my divisionary holding fleet. They just didn't expect a fleet coming from there....the game just hadn't trained them to look there.

But, back on topic: I thionk it's a shame, that restriction to 2d nowadays. Still doesn't mean it's not a great game. I'll definitely go play the demo when it's out.

[reimomo]

LMAO, what the hell? There is most certainly multi-player. Crimany, do a little research.

EDIT: Here, uh, watch this movie.
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/gamespace/download_alt.php?pid=935993&sid=6185226&id=6185226

Hmm, well I figured reading the previews listed here would mention multiplayer if it existed. Thank you professor.

[KingGorilla]

Hmm, well I figured reading the previews listed here would mention multiplayer if it existed. Thank you professor.

Maybe we need a lesson in spotting a rewritten PR note some time.

[Vandenh]

Attacking from the rear, flanking, or any tactical manoeuvre you can think of for that matter, has no point in Sins. It makes no difference from which direction the attack comes

Errr... I would assume that in the far future they can see you coming from 1000s of kilometers away and hence you would not gain any bonus :)

Also 3D RTS interfaces are hard to make easy on a flat 2D screen. So I understand the "2D" decision. You guys should be a bit more mellow. There is usually a good reason for devs to make certain decisions. Criticizing is easy from your comfy chair where apparently you can easily dream up how games should be.

[Goonch]

My preorder is in. I opted for the digital & boxed CE edition. I need another game like I need another vasectomy. However, I am a sucker for these space strategy games.

Here is the link to the G4TV segment on Sins:

http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/features/19985/Hands_On_Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire.html

[Teerakaar]

An interesting detail for all players of games who thought they have seen it all; Sins belongs to the RT4X class of games. Never heard of this particular class? Not surprising – it didn't exist before Sins. Does this mean Sins is completely different from all the rest of space games? Well, not really. It means that Ironclad was the first to use this new conglomerate name of Real Time and 4X – RT4X. If nothing else, Master of Orion 3 went there looong ago, with devastating results.

Hello all. First time poster so if something is messed up, I apologize in advance. IIRC, Imperium Galactica 1 and 2 were also realtime 4X games. It was decent for it's day but is now wildly out of date.

[Porkfry]

Can anyone tell me if this game is anything like the game "Hegemonia (http://www.hegemonia.info/)"? From the screens it looks alot like it but yeah I have no idea.

[Zane]

It's similar to Hegemonia but more focused on the development aspect. From what I recall of Hegemonia the R&D/dev/production was really an after-thought tacked on to the exploration and combat. For instance, in Hegemonia I recall research being ultra-fast, researching ships almost as quickly as you can fly across one system.

[Emabulator]

Sins has been released. I'm downloading it right now. :D