Sins of a Solar Empire

[Arrmani]

I'm looking for a new strategy game for PC to play occasionally, and this seemed pretty cool when it came out. I've only seen the X-play review for it, so I don't have much to go by. Anyone have this or played it? I'm trying to decide between this and Age of Empires 3.

[Aro]

I've never played Solar Empire, but my friend has said good things to me. Although I can recommend AoE3 since I did play it quite often back when it first came out. It's fun, and it's what you'd expect from a RTS, and it'll probably give you a lot of playtime.

[Silviya]

I would say it depends on what exactly you are looking for in your RTSs. At first SoaSE seemed really complex, which was exactly what I was looking for when I picked it up. Unfortunately, it was very easy to pick up on. After only a game or two with each of the 3 "unique" races I had pretty much figured out which units to work towards and how to out smart the AI.

I don't remember there being a campaine mode at all. It was all just random skermishes. Which I guess is what RTSs come down to after a while anyways. The game allows you set up the number of opponets/allies, the size of the galaxy you play in, etc.

As for the races themselves they aren't as unique as I was hoping they would be. The buildings are the same for each of the races. Really the only differences are the capital ships you get to pick (these are your hero units) and research trees vary enough so that late in the game your units are slightly better at one thing or another. This might have been enough to keep me interested in the game except for the easily out smarted AI. The AI seems to lack any sort of common sense with regards to when or where it attacks and can be easily manipulated.

Visually the game is fairly nice allowing you to zoom way out or very close up to your ships. However I felt the interface got a little crowded (although I didn't mess much with customizing it) and it was difficult to micro-manage when I had several different fleets and planets to worry about.

As I said, I was looking for a more complex type of RTS with a lot of micro-managing and unique races/units. With respect to that SoaSE was a disappointment. If you are just looking for a visually appalling space RTS that is fairly straight forward then it might be for you. Otherwise I would say save your money (or bandwidth).

I really wish I could find my MOO3 install disks...

[Hellfury]

Necro'ing this one.

I loved MoO2, been playing Civ5 (with expansions) a fair bit lately, didn't love MoO3.
Saw that they just released a new standalone expansion Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

Anyone played this and know if it is any good? I like some micromanaging (MoO2 was perfect for my tastes, still have it on my laptop) but not excessively. The customizing of ships in MoO2 is to date one of my all time favorite things about any TBS/RTS. Contemplating picking up Rebellion now for summer vacation activity (cold and wet summer thus far).

Halp!

[Prothescar]

Everything I've heard about Rebellion has been positive, however I've also seen people suggest that it's best for new players of the game, and people who've played the original may not be getting the same value out of it. It adds a whole bunch of new stuff, though.

[Hellfury]

I caved in to my curiosity and bought it, when they put in a backstory alluding to "something mysterious wiping out civilizations", I would've liked a campaign mode. But, seems to be only skirmish skirmish skirmish.
I miss when campaigns were mandatory, even if, like doom, they were superficial at best. (Yes, doom had a story!)

[BaneTheBrawler]

As an avid fan of Sins, I keep somewhat up to date on Stardock's announcements, and I seem to remember them talking about doing a Sins 2 that will finally have a campaign, dealing with the dark mysterious threat.

Rebellion is basically their final polish on the original Sins and its expansions - "As if Sins were made in 2012." They updated the engine, added steam support, tinkered with everything, and added an expansion's worth of stuff. A short overview I wrote for some friends on a different board:

It's completely standalone, so you don't need the original Trinity. If you have Trinity anyway, I remember hearing about a discount upgrade price, but I don't recall if anything came of that. They're talking about doing a collector's edition with a neat Kol Battleship model and some posters and stuff... and if you've already bought Rebellion when the Collector's Edition comes out, there will be a discount upgrade price.

Anyway, my favorite changes/additions:

TEC Loyalists: Each of the three races has two factions. The only faction I've tried for any meaningful amount of time... because it fits my play style so perfectly. It allows you to build two starbases per gravity well, reduces the resources required to upgrade them, and also grants combat bonuses to being in friendly territory.

TITANS. By far my favorite addition (aside from the factions themselves). Each faction gets its own unique Titan. You're only allowed to have one at a time, and they take a relatively long time/large amount of resources to get out, but each one is designed to be a beast on the battlefield. The AIs seem hesitant to deploy them. The one AI I've seen actually fielding a Titan immediately ran away from mine, despite it being higher lvl and in friendly territory (which also means some of my abilities were weaker). I later got him to commit it to battle, where I promptly ate it for breakfast. About 20 minutes after that another AI wiped him out. TEC Loyalists get the Ankylon titan. It's got abilities that protect nearby friendlies, debuff nearby hostiles, and increase armor repair/damage output for the titan itself. The Ankylon also has three passive abilities, which I'm assuming it shares with all other Titans, as they're fairly generic: Weapon upgrade, Armor upgrade, and Antimatter upgrade. Each level you get two ability points, and each ability can reach up to level 4.

Corvettes! They're small, cheap, fast frigates that act like fighters. They swoop in, attack, then swoop out. Each faction gets their own type. TEC Loyalists get the Shriken corvette, which sabotages the engines of ships as a passive on its normal attacks.

I've since spent a lot of time as Vasari Loyalists and Advent Rebels, and the Vasari Loyalists are FUN. Their Titan eats fleets. Literally. You vacuum them up in a cone in front of you, and if they get sucked all the way in they explode and you get a portion of their material worth. I had much less fun with the Advent, but I generally don't care for Advent to start with, and I was going for an achievement so I never built the Titan.

[Hellfury]

ok, 5.42 AM, time to go zzz, fun times were had!
(as in: I enjoy this game!)

[BaneTheBrawler]

I've been getting into this again. Anyone do modding? I want to make a custom faction, but there seems to be a much higher barrier to entry for modding this game than I'd like.