Video Games : Sins of a Solar Empire

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from: Stardock

: Sins of a Solar Empire
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List Price: $39.99
Amazon.com's Price: $34.99
You Save: $5.00 (13%)
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Amazon Maximum Age: 20 years
Amazon Minimum Age: 144 months
Binding: Video Game
Brand: Stardock
EAN: 0708192010608
ESRB Age Rating: Teen
Format: CD
Label: Stardock
Manufacturer: Stardock
Publisher: Stardock
Release Date: February 05, 2008
Sales Rank: 580
Studio: Stardock

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Product Description:
In the future, the survival of humanity stands on the edge of utter ruin as three powerful factions vie for control of the galaxy. Take command of one of three space-faring races as you work to establish your domination of the galaxy in Sins of a Solar Empire, fighting for the survival of your entire race against relentless foes. Your success will depend entirely on your ability to manage your empire and command your vast fleets of starships to victory. Through a combination of diplomacy, economic skill, cultural influence, and sheer military might you will establish order over your corner of the galaxy!
ESRB Rated T for Teen

Amazon.com:
Ten millennia have passed since you and the few survivors of the once mighty Vasari Empire fled from an unknown threat that all but exterminated your kind. You now find yourself at the fringe of the galaxy in a sector occupied by a pathetically primitive species - one obsessed with trade and lacking any central organization or military technology. Calling themselves the Trader Emergency Coalition, they would have been ideal slaves in the glorious days of the past, but time is of the essence. Use your mastery of phase-space manipulation, gravity and nanotechnology to quickly eliminate any local resistance and acquire the necessary resources to fuel the next segment of your continuing exodus.

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Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - great space battle sim
This is a great game for those that like chalenging battle. If it gets too easy you can just make it harder. Also is a Great mod "7 Deadly Sins" that adds many new planet types, all kinds of goodies and more races. Definately not a game you get bored with easily.


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Stardock games can play without impulse
One reviewer wrote that you require Impulse to play Stardock games. This simple is not true and he's misinformed. You can pull your internet cable out, go to the game folder and start the game .exe or shortcut and play it fine. He also states that you cant get patches for Stardock games without Impulse service, this also wrong. Two of their most recent titles.

Galactic Civilization + addons: http://browse.files.filefront.com/Galactic+Civilizations+2+Official+Patches/;1595622;/browsefiles.html

Sins of the Solar Empire: http://browse.files.filefront.com/Sins+of+a+Solar+Empire+Official+Patches/;2193325;/browsefiles.html

So there you go, the dude is just hyping his own company instead of Stardock. Ive sold 2 of my games and transferred the license fine. If you want to archive the game you have that option if you buy it online, just burn it to disc with its current patches and install it later. Impulse is a STEAM like service that just keeps your games updated and gives you community and Stardock news or special offers. Its not mandatory that you install the service or use it. I personally do so I dont have to go chasing patches around. At times they even offer beta patches if you want to try out the next build early.

Stardock is a shining light amongst publishers out there. I wish all publishers were like Stardock. Then we wouldnt have to worry about all this DRM crap which they are very much against.

Regards.


Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - Frustrating gameplay mid-way through spoils an otherwise fun experience
To start with I was rather disillusioned that the game basically had no storyline, and I didn't bother to sit through the opening videos so I had no idea what it was about or who the people involved are or why there is anything anywhere for any reason, so that is a major minus in my view.

Instead, singleplayer is reduced to tutorials and constant Random Map "skirmishes" where you pick your race out of three, and some opponents. The opening UI is incredibly complex, but unlike Homeworld 2, it's user-friendly and a brief run of the first tutorial and some experimenting will have you more or less under control soon enough.

Being as it was developed by the same people who released Galactic Civilizations II, it has a similar feel to it, and similar look. Thankfully, though, there is no turn system, and everything happens in real time, and best of all, you can micro-manage your battles instead of, as in GalCiv2, gambling 6,000 troops against 43 and somehow having the computer LOSE the battle for you in an insanely bad play of rock paper scissor or the like.

Unlike Galactic Civilizations II, though, everything is geared towards war, more like a typical Real Time Strategy, with a focus on acquiring credits through tax and trade, metal and crystals through mining, and slowly upgrading your ships and your planet to be better at everything.

This is all well and good except for the fact that the computer, your enemy, seems to borrow a bit from the "excellent AI" of GalCiv2 (at least a Normal enemy) and tends to blaze past all the quickest and easiest upgrades for expansion, and expands to fifty eight billion different solar systems while you're still trying to figure out whether to spend half of your entire treasury on giving a 3% boost to metal production or a 5% boost to laser damage.

As I was totally overwhelmed early on, I tried changing the computer to an Easy one. The only effect this has had on me was that instead of the computer blazing to become an Imperial Empire fifty thousand billion times bigger than the Roman Empire in seventeen minutes and then burying you under endless amounts of fleets when you can only just afford 5 basic fighter vessels, the computer would do the exact same thing, except they would almost never attack you, and once you attack back, no matter how many ships you have in comparison, their ships will flee the system.


What also becomes incredibly frustrating is how tiny everything is in the system, and how incredibly stuffed with wireframepictures the left side of the screen becomes as you colonize more and more planets/asteroids and build more and more ships, that micromanagement no longer increases at a steady rate, but at an exponential rate, which can see someone like me, who can barely micromanage ONE planet while exploring systems with a small fleet, and the next phase involving having to micromanage SIX planets and TWO MASSIVE attack fleets, while my ally is being attacked in three different systems about five systems away from me, behind enemy lines, and screaming at me for not helping.


Some other problems with the game I've had include the fact that all your enemies, regardless if you've never touched them or if you've exterminated their homeworld, will want to give you missions running the gamut from "Give me money" to "Kill my enemies", and failing these missions will make them hate you (though the "Hate-O-Love-O-Meter" can't go below 0). You cannot give them missions.

The HP to Damage system is badly unbalanced, in which even the most basic warship will have between 400-600 HP, and that same warship will do at best, 6 damage. This means that spacebattles will be a strenuous, stressful affair with you pounding away with dozens of ships on an enemy, while they do the same to you, with no clear result happening unless they decide to run away or reinforcements arrive to speed the destruction along. This also makes bombing planets/asteroids a tedious affair which can see you having your capital ships stay in one place for many minutes just bombarding one planet because they have 6000 HP and each slow-to-fire bomb does 20 damage.


And through all this, no matter what the difficulty level, the computer is a master of micro-managing itself and expanding with all the speed of the Black Death.


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - A game you can get yourself lost in...
The overall game play can eat into hours of play without you noticing it. It has a different feel from other games out there...


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Excellent Game for Fans of Space Based RTS
I spent untold hours playing Sins before moving on to other games, and I'll probably revisit it again in a year or two. For me this game was an excellent investment of my entertainment dollars.

Some high-points of the game:

- Great Graphics on closest zoom levels
- Seamless performance except on really really massive custom maps
- Galaxy Level to Ship Level zoom in/out is impressively smooth
- Great sounds effects, voice acting, and in-game soundtrack
- Challenging AI on harder difficulty settings
- Good Pace: You have enough time to explore and build-up before battling
- Decent Variety of Capital ships and frigates
- Decent balance between the 3 races
- Artifacts and planet bonuses are a cool feature
- Galaxy Menu is a great tool. Good organization of the layout in general.

Some Flaws:

- Races ships and technology trees are too similar to each other.
- Some utility frigates are virtually useless
- Would have liked an 'engineer' frigate that can capture enemy structures
- The AI tends to retreat too quickly, your AI allies don't coordinate their attacks with you.
- The pirate attacks are too frequent (you can turn this off with patch)
- Single player game play could use more variety or a campaign

If you do buy the game be sure to get the patch from stardock's website. This fixes some balance issues and gives you more choices when setting up single player maps. Also, they have a beta version out that contains a significant graphics/gameplay update, but no new ships or technologies.


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