Dawn of the Reapers (Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion mod) v.0.2

Zach Goodier

In honor of n7 Day, I wanted to share a fun public alpha mod for one of my favorite space empire-building real-time strategy games, Sins of a Solar Empire.  You can play as Cerberus, who use strictly Alliance technology, the Council races, who use a mix of Alliance, Turian, and Asari vessels, or the Reapers, who use… well, themselves, mostly.  Each race has their own “rebel” classes that allow some subdivision based on how you want to play that race, usually between offense/defense, or maybe military/civil specialties.

Time to live out some more of my nerdy dreams.

One major difference (aside from the reskins) is the use of kinetic barriers.  Instead of functioning as a “shield,” these deduct a certain percentage (70% seems the norm) from the base damage applied when a ship is hit by enemy fire.  This is an interesting mechanic, but it can seem rather counter to lore, which does have kinetic barriers intended to completely block incoming attacks. 

New load screens are always a nice extra touch.

Many of the vanilla units have been redone, but not all.  I found a few dead research items that did not give me the ships specified (likely because they were vanilla ships not meant to be included in the mod at all), and some items still use vanilla textures because of a lack of lore-friendly replacements at this time.  There is also a lack of abilities for capital ships and titans to spend points on, so those are presently useless to improve your lead ships.  However, it is important to remember that this is still in alpha, and is not yet any sort of final product.

Reaper models don't quite capture that same feeling that they do in the series, but they're still a force to be feared.

Cerberus and Council races are fairly straight-forward, with their own frigates and cruisers taken from the ME universe.  The most interesting race to play as is presently the Reapers.  Both the strength and weakness of the Reapers is their size.  I say this, because other than unarmed Collector ships used as scouts, there are only a few varieties of Reapers to choose from, and all of them are expensive.  Building up fleets with the Reapers is not at all impossible, but once you start using them in combat, you quickly realize that they don’t usually need fleet support due to high survivability and potent firepower.  As a started out fighting local pirates and militia, I quickly realized that a lone Reaper was more than adequate to sweep aside regional resistance groups.  Once you start facing rival empires, then you might have to form a wolf pack to get the job done, but the Reapers trade in quantity for quality, that’s for sure.  Still, I would rather see the Reapers themselves as capital ships, and use the Geth as the frigates/cruisers in the Reaper fleet.

Many structures have been redone to fit the universe.

There is still a ways to go before this mod is ready to be considered a full, complete package, but it’s off to a great start.  I do wish that Cerberus was reserved for the rebel side of an Alliance race, but then I suppose we would want to see every race independent, but I like the idea of the Alliance being separate, since I always liked their ship designs, but never really felt like a Cerberus fan. 

Markings all fit the factions, so even Alliance style ships will have Cerberus markings if that's the faction you're playing as.

In terms of the Reapers, despite what initially appears to be a balance issue on the part of the Reapers, they’re not at all unbeatable.  That may seem like a grievous sin in terms of ME lore, but for the sake of keeping this game fair, it seems to work for now.  There are several areas where I would like to see more of what’s in store, but as it stands, this is a good starting point.  There’s a lot of detail work to do, and those details could make or break this in terms of depth and immersion.  The Normandy doesn’t itself appear as far as I’ve seen, but there is a class modeled after the first version that is fairly weak and feels disappointing.  With the inclusion of ship abilities and additional content, as well as the one ship we all want to command, this can be the Mass Effect game I never knew I wanted.

Good:

-Cerberus, Council, and Reapers all appear faithfully and well-balanced.

-Units look good for the most part, just don't zoom in too close.

-A Mass Effect-themed RTS, ‘nuff said.

Bad:

-Reapers could use some support ships, maybe Geth or something, and keep the Reapers themselves as capital ships/titans.  This one is very debatable so I won’t really take off for it.

-Some dead research items and missing/vanilla unit icons in the menu, and the expected bug here and there.

-No Normandy, there is a class modeled after the first one, but they’re weak corvettes/scouts, and a bitter disappointment to watch get shot out of the sky.

Scully Rating: 7.0 out of 10

Fallen Enchantress

Zach Goodier

Fallen Enchantress is a PC strategy empire builder RPG that puts the play in control of a faction.  You must then settle your initial city, building outposts and trying to control resources on the map in order to secure yourself while conducting research, training troops, and sending your heroes on quests to acquire items and gain experience to level up.  These heroes can also be used to lead your armies or form adventure parties to clear the map of hostile creatures or rival empires. 

I do love the pride in building a successful civilization.

Gameplay is turn-based, with a map view that contains all of your empire/unit management interfaces.  There are local maps that appear when armies engage in combat, with initiative determining what units move in what turn.  This further adds some RPG elements to the game, and heroes can become very dangerous when they level up.  While playing, I enjoyed taking on larger armies, and still winning just because I had a hero or two mixed in, which really made a difference in combat that the calculator won’t give you in the estimates or auto-resolve, so fighting your own battles can be very rewarding if done right.

Customizing your heroes with looted gear has a very strong, yet traditional RPG feel to it.

The story is fairly flimsy, with each leader (which you can make on your own, if the presets don’t appeal to you) taking command of a race, and then seeking to become dominant in whatever area you wish, whether you research, trade, or conquer (I prefer the last one).  You can set up the win conditions as you see fit when you start a game, if you only want to play one type of campaign.  Maps include presets or randomly-generated maps, each with different regions with various characteristics and native monsters, whether they include bears, giant spiders, or various, much more lethal foes.  You can even take control of certain beasts if you are lucky/resourceful enough, which adds a new element of strategy when approaching enemies, and can really tip the scales if done right.  This game is about the struggle to dominate, and you are more or less free to choose the means.

Battles will start out small, but grow into big encounters as the stakes are raised.

While the foundation of this game feels solid, neither the graphics nor the gameplay feels all as polished as it could have been.  Character customization is nice when making a leader, but it lacks the depth and variation that the option implies.  You have some variety, but not much.  You can select gear and such for training units to truly make the armies feel your own, but they also lack the variety and depth beyond simple upgrades.  It would have been neat to see more options geared towards unit specialization and the like.  You can find and recruit randomly spawning heroes, and they do add some neat mechanics towards army management and questing, but they never feel like more than just a different type of unit, aside from the ability to gain traits as they level. 

Maps aren't really all that huge for a game of this genre, but random generation keeps the replay value somewhat high if you enjoy the game.

Overall, this is a game that entertains, but doesn’t really impress.  I found myself coming back, but not because the game itself was that impressive, just because I didn’t have anything else I felt like doing at the time.  So in that sense, it does a decent job of helping keep you entertained, but it certainly lacks the depth and polish that you find in other strategy games, and it doesn’t delve as deep into role-playing as other RPG games.  It ends up feeling like an interesting attempt to meld the two, which might have been more successful with more time and polish, as well as some variety and originality in how both the strategy and RPG elements were implemented in this game.  Fallen Enchantress is an interesting game at first glance, but starts to lose its sense of intrigue and wonder as you delve further into its world.

Good:

-Nice combination of Strategy and RPG elements, melding empire management and strategy with questing.

-Randomly-generated maps make replay value relatively high.

Bad:

-Attempts at variety are shallow in both character and unit customization.

-Doesn’t really do much with the strategy/RPG combo to really make it feel at home in this game.

Scully Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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