Oh, Sins of a Solar Empire. I remember seeing the previews for this game in the winter of 2008 and going straight to Gamestop on its release date after school in an attempt to purchase it for the full price of $40. They didn’t have it. I went to Gamestop three days in a row until they finally had it in stock. I must have played till 4AM when I finally got to install it on my dad’s computer. I bought all three expansion backs and the two extra DLC packs that came out later.
The story goes like this. The human Trader Emergency Coalition (TEC) have recently been invaded by the technologically advanced Vasari, who have been chased across the universe by an unknown force. Just as soon as the TEC started forming a counter attack against the Vasari, the TEC deviants, who were banished long ago for their blasphemous telekinetic technology, return stronger than ever and now call themselves the Advent. They seek revenge. The TEC starts digging in, building massive defense networks within gravity wells. The Vasari and the Advent do the same. After 30 years of constant warfare, peace is sought, but rebellion has formed in all three factions. Even though Sins has no campaign, the story told in the intro allows you to use your imagination as you play on maps that can consist of only a star and a dozen planets or up to a handful of star systems with hundreds of planets and anomalies, like wormholes and meteor fields.
Sins of a Solar Empire consists of exploring and colonizing asteroids and planets and engaging in large space battles centered around the gravity wells of these stellar orbs. There are three playable factions, but the recent Rebellion expansion breaks down each faction into two sub-factions. The humans, the Trader Emergency Coalition are masters of trade and industry, the Advent have dominion over their strange telekinetic powers and can spread their culture fastest, while the alien Vasari faction have the most advanced technology and therefore the most powerful ships. Each faction has their own technology, ships and buildings, but unlike Starcraft, each faction has the same basic types of units. The two sub-factions within each faction have are divided between rebel and loyalist factions and have technologies that match their ideology. What also separates each sub-faction apart are Titans, massive starships, that are so powerful, that each player can only wield one at a time. If you can stomach the cost and time it takes to build one, it can be a total game changer.
Hundreds of ships can battle in gravity wells surrounding stars, planets and asteroids. Fleets consists of tiny fighters and bombers, small frigates, specialized cruisers, huge capital ships and of course, the utterly massive , nearly invincible titans. You can bombard planets, build gigantic star bases (to protect your gravity wells), make allies, spread your culture across solar systems and place bounty on players. When bounty is collected by the AI controlled pirate faction, the pirates attack the faction with the most bounty on them. Pirates will only attack one planet, and most of the time they will bring a massive fleet to destroy your structures and bombard your planet with nuclear weapons. Sometimes it can be beneficial to sacrifice a planet to pirates, especially if your fleet is not capable of repelling the pirate fleet. The greater the bounty, the larger a pirate fleet.
Sins of a Solar Empire is a combination of all my favorite things. It is a real time strategy game, a 4X game and to top it all off it is set in space. Real time strategy games are usually fast paced clickathons, with a mix of tactics. A combination of speed and tactics wins the day for most RTS games. 4X games are usually turn based and consist of exploration, expansion, exploitation, and extermination. They usually have large research trees, meaning that one has to take time to think about what decisions to make.
So, how does Sins of a Solar Empire work as both a real time strategy game and a 4X strategy game? Well, first off the interface and pace of the game make managing hundreds of units, dozens of planets and a few star systems easy. The tactics take care of themselves, or if you want, you can micromanage your units individual abilities and targets. The empire tree is a revolutionary interface tool, allowing you to clearly see all your fleets, planets, and buildings with easily distinguishable icons.
The graphics are pure eye candy, and the engine allows you to zoom in flawlessly in real time from the smallest fighter ship, (about an 1/1000 of the size of the largest Titans) all the way out to your entire solar empire. Buildings can be placed without even placing them, or you can micromanage and build them where you want them to be. Planetary defenses include defense platforms, hangers (for your fighters and bombers), mines, and of course the all powerful star base. The always fun to build star bases, along with mines, and cruisers specifically designed for destroying structures were all added in Sins’ first expansion pack, Entrenchment. Tip: always upgrade your star bases to the max, because they are pretty weak without upgrades.
Diplomacy, Sins’ second expansion pack, and probably the weakest part of the game allows you to engage in diplomacy. This consists of completing missions for other factions, building and sending out missionary cruisers, and even sending missions to other factions. The problem is that you always start off at war or as allies, instead of neutral, like in other 4X games. This makes it harder to form alliances, but it is still possible. This expansion pack also added a Diplomatic victory option.
Rebellion, was the third and final major stand alone expansion pack for Sins’ and it is also my favorite. First of all, there are the massive Titans. The best feeling in game is fully upgrading a Titan, to the point that it all but a God unit. It could take hours to finish researching, building and upgrading a Titan to its full capacity. The expansion back also divided the three factions into two subfactions, creating more variety and strategies. Loyalist factions are more defensive or diplomatic, while the Rebellion factions have research and Titans that are meant for total war. That’s how I like to play.
I love the rebel factions, especially the TEC, which has research upgrades that allow you to ally with the pirate faction and build the most Titan with the most insane firepower. At the start of a game I usually build capital ships capable of colonizing planets, foregoing the weak, slow and often left behind colony frigates. I then colonize as quickly as possible until I feel like I’ve extended my reach too thin. Then I immediately dig in my defenses at the front of my empire, building hangers, defense platforms and of course the star bases. Even though my fleet is small, I try to defend until I can build a Titan and then go on offense. Finally, if there are empty star systems I’ll start to colonize them after engaging in total war with one or two other factions. Then I’ll build more fleets to increase the number of fronts. It is important to not expand fleet sizes to quickly, since fleet upkeep increases quickly the more you research fleet supply systems.
The two minor expansion packs, Stellar Phenomena and Forgotten Words that came out recently add more stars, planets, and anomalies, as well as random events. It adds more strategy and interesting twists to the Sins Universe.
Graphics have improved dramatically since the initial release and even my AMD six core processor and Nvidia 560 TI graphics card with 8gb of RAM computer runs out of memory on the highest settings. Music is pretty good, sound effects are a little lacking, but some have oomph.