Zach Goodier
While I have played the original Sins, I basically refer to this as the true game. This game is about galactic domination, and
lets you manage an empire in real time
as you expand, explore, and conduct diplomacy, and eventually go to war in
order to achieve victory. You can choose
between 3 races, and those 3 races each have 2 factions: loyalist and
rebels. While there is a back-story to
these races and factions, you can ignore it, since you can assign teams to any
faction.
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| Establish an empire that would make the Empire from Star Wars look like an Amish enclave. |
You start out with one planet, then proceed to move out and
explore, as you research military and civil technology to improve your
empire. These can range from improving weapon
damage or armor for you ships, to improving tax income on your planets. These can all help in various ways, but each
faction is unique; some are more commerce oriented, while others focus mostly
on combat, but all are able to branch out in some way so they don’t feel
limited.
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| The galaxy can be a beautiful, but dangerous place. |
You can select pre-made maps, or do random maps of various
sizes. As you explore these maps, you’ll
find various planets, like volcanic, frozen, desert, and terran. There are also dwarf planets and asteroids. There are also wormholes, pirates, and other
wonders mixed in. Each one is different, with planets being able to accommodate
a higher population in general, but different types are ideal for different
developments, whether they focus on cultural or industrial output. Each has its own value, with culture helping
to convert planets, and industry helping to improve your military and
commercial fleets. However,
overspecializing in one area leaves you vulnerable in the other, so balance is
always key in developing a good strategy.
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| Here's an overview of this map, but you can SEAMLESSLY scroll in on any system to see what's there, as long as you have some way of monitoring it, that is. |
Capital ships are harder to build, and their numbers or
severely limited, but they offer unique abilities as they level up from
experience that make them indispensible in your armada. You’ll want to protect them, because if you
lose them, that means having to rebuild the ship and starting over from
scratch, so it’s a good idea to keep an eye on your fleets when they’re engaged
to withdraw any capital ships that might be at risk. However, they aren’t fragile by any means,
but if your enemy is well-equipped, then it can give you cause for concern.
The reason this is the
version to play is that it comes with the star bases and the rebel factions,
which the main game doesn’t have.
Star bases allow for you to establish an orbital platform that you can
customize with various improvements ranging from establishing a proxy
government to maintain control of a planet even if the enemy takes the ground,
to construction bays for ships and trade ships.
The ultimate ships that each faction controls are the
Titans, and they require an enormous amount of resources and time to
construct. While this seems daunting,
the rewards are as big as the ship itself.
Each faction has a unique titan, which generally specializes in offense
or defense. Simply put, each ship is a
flying super fortress, capable of packing an entire fleet’s worth of firepower
and armor into a single ship. That being
said, you’ll want to defend your titan, and sending it out alone is never a
great idea, since you’ll want support ships to keep it from being the sole
target of your enemies, because it’s not invincible.
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| This titan is literally a giant gun with smaller guns and missile batteries built around it... and an engine to make it move. |
The graphics are amazing, you can seamlessly zoom in and out
of the action to quickly transition from one system to another. This
game has an impressive sense of scale, and it can seem overwhelming at first to
manage an empire in real time when you truly feel that you have to eventually
run half a solar system down to the mining and trade. While a lot of it is automated, it can seem a
little daunting to have to manage it all when the situation changes, and
something almost always slips through the cracks.
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| Titans are tough, but situations like this are bad. Every ship is firing at the titan, and while it can take a beating, a combined assault like this will wear it down. |
The problems with this game are few, but significant. Diplomacy is cool, but unless you’re actually
on the same team, you HAVE to fight eventually, so if you’re hoping for a Civilization-style diplomacy victory,
guess again. Plus the way you earn favor
with each group is generally to perform some silly mission they give, whether
you have to attack someone or just give them things. While this alone isn’t a bad thing, when it
requires attacking an ally, or someone that is one the other side of the
galaxy, well out of reach, then it really becomes a hassle. And the worst part is, if you don’t finish
the mission, the provider becomes dissatisfied with you, making diplomacy a
real pain at times, and it can seem rather simplistic and one-sided.
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| Go forth, and do great things, my friends. |
Overall, this is a fun game, while it isn’t without fault,
and the play times can drag on for ages (so be prepared), it is still a fun
game. Diplomacy feels weak, but as a
military space RTS, this is probably as good as it gets. Empire building is always fun for me, but
without the ability to see more diverse AI in the single-player, and the difficulty
of forming alliances, and knowing they will only be temporary, leaves the
diplomacy in general as feeling like more of an afterthought than a significant
component of the game itself. While it
helps keep monkeys off your back, it doesn’t add a whole lot to the game as a
whole. That being said, I never cared
much for diplomacy when I have a massive space armada under my command,
anyways.
Good:
-Excellent Empire building, space RTS
-Sense of scale is impressive throughout, with varied planet
types and new horizons to explore (until you find everything, that is).
-Sophisticated research trees and diversity between races
and factions
-TITANS!!! They make the bad ships go away in style.
Bad:
-Diplomacy is a weak, which hurts the overall feel more than
it should.
-Enemy AI isn’t poor, it does feel a little straightforward
though.
Scully Rating: 9 out of 10
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