Sins is being pushed as the best of both the 4x, and RTS worlds. That is exactly what i expect it to be.
(Rant) Right now it is leaning more toward the RTS side of things.. gee, i wonder why. Is it because thats what everyone here has been asking for in the past? More tactic's, more clicky fest, more micro, more homeworld/starcraft wannabe? Wah, wah, wah, i want supcom, or DoW in space. Look at the past post's here, and you will get my drift
Why is it that all of a sudden NOW after the dev's said they cant do any major change to the engine anymore do we all decide to start talking about the 4x side of things? IIRC most 4x discussions got greeted with the "wah, i just want my RTS" type responses. Which is fine. To each their own. However, Do NOT start championing 4x after posting in the past many times in so many words that you wanted more RTS in the game. Some will say they didn't say these things, but don't take my word for it. Search the forums, and see for yourself. (end of rant)
As for me.. Well.. I want my freaking FOUR X!...dammit.
So far we have it, but in a very limited form. Sins does have everything any other 4x game has Exploration, Expansion, Exploitation, and Extermination. Diplomacy can use some more work, and it is being worked on. I hope i will see some more espionage in the final game. I want to be able to use spy's to infiltrate, and disable stuff. I want an influence system in place to where if i demand the AI to surrender they will do so if they are hopelessly outnumbered.
You guys now want to lengthen the research. Weren't people bitching that MP games took way too long in beta 3? (look it up) The dev's listened, and they did speed up the game. Now you want to go, and slow it back down again........
The research tree's still need some tweaking. As in some researches taken down to a lower tier which was discussed before, but the research speeds are fine as they are right now. If people think normal is too fast then switch it to slow (beta 3's normal).
Right now "flip flopping" is coming to mind.
There is more i wanted to talk about but i am tired, and cant think straight now.