Sins is certainly a very epic game that focuses more on high level strategy and less on individual tactics than most competing strategy titles. However, I think one feature that detracts from the 'epic feel' of sins is the capital ship system. This, in my mind, brings the game closer to a traditional RTS.

In the interest of early game enjoyment, fun, and extra decision making, the game grants you access to capital ships when you do not have the technology to build more than a simple frigate.

While you progress up the tech tree, you unlock new and different types of frigates, but all throughout the game the backbone of your fleet are the capital ships that the game magically grants you. The capital ships are fun to level up and specialize in their abilities (and help keep players attached to their beloved ships), but by and large they represent the military pinnacle of your civilization... and you get them at the beginning. This leaves little power to be had at the upper ends of the economic and research development paths.

In addition, the fleet crew cap system, as well as capital ships that start out weak and magically increase in ability, ensures that players will never be able to use their economic advantage to both research and develop powerful weapons of war, and after producing them in large numbers, crush the enemy. Capital ships are granted early to make the early game much more compelling, at the cost of being a mid to late game reward and tool for victory.

As well, the combat system seems designed to prolong engagements (shield mitigation, complex armor vs. weapon type balancing, light armament on most ships), when the contrary and natural desire is for combat systems to be lethal (they're designed to kill, after all!). This tends to make ships across the board (especially the deliberately weakened capital ships) feel less than satisfying.

Combined, you have freebie capital ships that do not take effort by players to earn (but do take effort to babysit), and which can't be used to overwhelmingly crush an enemy (decreased combat usefulness from what you'd expect given their size, hard fleet cap limits, requirement to first level up the ships before they become viable in combat).

This would seem to make the research trees not as compelling as they could be (you get all the cool toys at the beginning of the game), and overwhelmingly focus the game on frigate sized ships, which would seem to skew gameplay towards 'rushing'.

I haven't played any 4X games in a long time, but from what I can remember powerful tech always tends to be at the upper echelons of the tech tree, and attaining it can very well lead to victory, as these systems and technologies are designed to fight and win, not to be fun to 'play with'. Part of the fun of expanding your epic civilization is enjoying and exploiting the rewards that come from fully developing it, economically, militarily, and scientifically. By giving us the fun stuff too early, you reduce the fun we might otherwise get in the late game. I think this detracts from what would otherwise feel like a much more epic game.

(1) It might have more 'depth' but all that 'depth' is piled onto you (if EU is anything like Hearts of Iron). A newbie faced with such a game cannot grok even the simple things because of the complexity. The user interface is something integral to Sins. The fact that it's an RTS gives it a familiarity that doesn't come through with Turn-Based games, which all seem like a totally different monster by comparison. In Sins, you're playing the game, you're playing the ships, you're playing the movement, you're playing the moment. In TBS games you're playing the interface - and this differs WILDLY between different games - even with IDENTICAL mechanics.

The point is, just because Sins has a more logical UI and more logical gameplay doesn't make it less 'deep', just easier to play.

(2) This is where the real 'depth' of Sins lies. The first time I played this game, I thought it was practically BARREN compared to other games. But that's just an illusion. The illusion of the peaceful music and stillness of space. Other RTSs are so BUSY compared to Sins, and I think someone on the dev team realized this, because the music is ironically peaceful.

This game has levels of complexity. These levels are approached naively, nothing is ever piled onto the player. A lot of people complain that the 'ships for each race are identical.' How does one argue with that? Yes, I suppose they are, but the races are so DIFFERENT that the ship question misses the point entirely. Someone making this claim has not yet breached the outer layer of the game.

(3) The 'depth' of a game like Space Empires V comes in the form of extreme front-loaded complexity. After that complexity is overcome and you have memorized the encyclopedia of information that it takes to understand relational mechanics in the game, the depth is all gone.

Galciv II at least tries to break away from all that front-loaded complexity starting you out with very logical naively reachable goals and leading you through by letting you discover the game instead of fight against it. There is still a lot of complexity there, but the interface (remember, in a TBS you are playing the interface) makes it all come together without it all coming together at one time, overwhelming a new player. There still isn't a real 'depth' to the game since I've always felt that if the game was multiplayer, there would be only one or two real paths to victory. (It's still fun, though. And I consider whoever designed the interface for that game a god among ants in the gaming industry.) In this way, Sins has much more depth, even in an unbalanced state. The key is that it isn't as complex, it's not as front-loaded with mystery and voodoo.

Some people misinterpret this simplicity as a lack of depth. These people have apparently never played Go.

I wish I'd read your posts before I wasted my money on this game. I think even 3X is a bit strong, X would have done fine. eXterminate.

Let's try to stick to "what could be added to improve the game's 4X aspects," ok folks? I understand the frustration, but seeing as we're already invested it seems to me the best course of action is to try to encourage positive change in the game.

Isn't Imperium Galactica II a pretty good example of a functional rts/4x hybrid? That's sort of what I compare this game to in my mind. You could design your own ships/ send spies/ build up planets, etc. all in real-time. I don't know how well it worked in multiplayer though, since I never got a chance to try it online.





You can't edit a post when someone posts after you, it's how these forums are set up.

I should probably add that when I say "depth" I mean empire building depth, not combat depth. I see that the counter system and whatnot is quite involved and that if one were inclined to micromanage every battle one might be able to derive more depth from the game play. I find that kind of micromanagement frustrating at best, futile at worse, and certainly not fun. With the AI the way it is, I've yet to see any reason not to simply build a diversified ball of units and hurl it at the enemy. I suppose if the counter system were more meaningful in my games I might be more inclined to notice that kind of thing. Still, it's not what I'm after in this kind of game.

When I see "4X" I expect empire building, I expect more than one way to win, and I expect to manage a lot of variables in the pursuit of those goals. The absence of all that, more than anything else, is why I think this game is an RTS and should be labeled as such.

Much bullshit, very smelly thread.

Isn't a real 4x, and isn't galciv2 complexity aren't exactly the same thing. Master of Magic and the first civ game are founding games in the genre, both 4x, neither compare well in complexity despite having near identical shells. Neither are anywhere near as complex as Galciv2, which is far more complex than the first, and nowhere near as complex as something retardedly annoying, like MOO3. So it's not galciv2 complexity, it's more complex than the first civ game, is that no longer a 4x because more complex ones have been invented? Culture is a recent addition to 4x games, espionage usually amounts to a slider that feeds you information. Be honest, compare the game to 4x in general, not the most complex one you've played.

Playing small maps and saying "Well this game has no depth, I know exactly where the enemy is when I'm playing on a set map with 10 planets!" is borderline retarded, and most definitely dishonest. You could say that it's hard to play it like the 4x that it is in multi-player, on account of a random huge 10 player game being... long? If you're not playing a 4x game, it's by choice. If you choose to play a random huge with 10 players, you will be scouting just to keep track of who's where, find your biggest threats. You will engage in the diplomacy system to keep from being butchered, you will use culture to keep from being wiped out by it, you will research more than a few techs, just to stay in the game, and you will not build a few ships and throw them at the enemy. You will most definitely not build a "few" buildings and then ignore a planet. You'll have full tactical upgrades and still get to rebuild them on occasion.

The diplomacy system does suck though. It's growing on me, like fungus, yucky fungus that unfairly only infests me and not my opponents. If it were transparent and I could tell wtf was going on with my opponents, I might actually like it by now, it's almost entertaining to try and get allies. I went on a blitz through three enemy territories with a marauder and accompanying fleet last night to accomplish a building kill requirement with about 30 seconds to spare. Frigging dead asteroids and other factions were in my way.

ftw!!!

Exactly. You get _crushed_ on a single-star map if you go eco.

Yeah, I think that Psychoak may be on to something. For those of you who think this game lacks depth, try increasing the size of your maps. I'm not going to say that it will convince everyone but it's a different game at larger sizes.

I play large, random maps with 3-5 stars and at least 8 opponents. I've played those settings since my first few games where I learned the ropes (well, I tried the Gateway map a week ago and had fun). I find that at this size there is a great deal of strategy and critical decision making that takes place. My fleet is normally fighting on three fronts (gawd, I miss the two-front days) and I find myself scrambling to defend worlds during the entire game.

On the other hand, when I argue with people about rushes and early game strategy I don't take into account the fact that they are probably playing on a small or medium map. Or that they are playing a set map where everyone knows where everyone else is. I wrongly assume that they are playing large and random which, IMHO, is the only way to go. I'll keep that in mind.

That's true if the only thing that has changed is a larger map size. But let's also assume that you are fighting at least 6, 8, or 10 opponents. At some point you have to focus on one and beat him down while fending off the others. Decisions like the size of your attacking force and defending force have to be taken into account. Fleet composition has to be considered.

Oh, and I always enjoy a good MOO2 idolizing too. That game was so fun and was so unbalanced with so many exploits. Still a classic!!!

I don't see how that's different from a free-for-all in any other RTS. Aside from being 'bigger'.

Honestly, I haven't played a lot of RTSs besides StarCraft and WarCraft and a little Age of Empires III. But in those, at least it seemed to me, there was only one path to the enemy and the fighting either took place at his base, your base, or clashed in the middle.

I also seem to find my "comfort zone" with favorite units and just sent waves of them. For instance, in SC, a favorite rush group was a few siege tanks with marines to support them. The siege tanks would pound the ground while the marines provided cover.

Maybe I just haven't found that unit comfort zone yet in Sins. And maybe I haven't played an RTS that offers so many variants in the different paths to the enemy. I'm just going off of what I've played in the past. Maybe it is the same when you boil it down - just bigger. I won't argue that.

Either way, I ultimately agree with Frogboy that the game incorporates elements of both an RTS and 4X. And, IMHO, the game does it well.